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Queensland risks condemning generations of students to segregated schooling.

An internal courtyard of an institutional looking building

Queensland’s government recently announced its intention to build six new special schools in the state budget. The government says the boost will ensure students with higher support needs receive the specialised teaching and learning required for them to thrive, however the Australian Coalition for Inclusive Education, a national alliance of 25 organisational members representing people with disability with a combined reach of more than 1.2 million Australians, is deeply alarmed by the decision. Data shows students with disability who attend special schools are 85% more likely to follow a ‘polished pathway to segregation’ and end up in sheltered employment and group home living.

The disability alliance group says it is unsettled by the Queensland Government’s decision to purposefully ignore years of advocacy from the disability community and clear recommendations from the Disability Royal Commission.

Powerd Media’s Emma Myers spoke with Children and Young People with Disability Australia CEO, Skye Kakoschke-Moore, to get her take on the situation.

Queensland risks condemning generations of students to segregated schooling

Video transcript

Emma Myers 0:00

So the Queensland Government has announced its intention to build six new special schools. What do you think about that?

Skye Kakoschke-Moore 0:11

This was a devastating announcement for not only the disability community in Queensland, but for the disability community across Australia. What it does is send a really dangerous message that students with disability don't deserve to be educated alongside their non disabled peers in mainstream schools, but rather, they need to have multiple new special schools built in order to accommodate them. This is really upsetting for everyone who has been fighting for a truly inclusive education system in Australia, and it flies in the face of evidence that shows that students with disability and non disabled students achieve better social educational physical outcomes when they are educated together,

Emma Myers 1:04

and there's been numerous studies that show this. So why do you think the government has ignored the recommendations as outlined in the disability Royal Commission?

Skye Kakoschke-Moore 1:20

That's such a great question, because it it does seem that the Queensland Government has ignored the recommendations in the disability Royal Commission and has not given enough weight to the evidence that has been released in recent years that shows that segregation results in worse outcomes for students with disability. The Royal Commission, for example, heard that for NDIS participants who were educated in a segregated setting, they were more likely to end up in segregated settings later on in life, so sheltered workshops or group homes. So really that by starting students in a segregated setting early, you are putting them on this pathway towards being not part of the broader Australian community.

Emma Myers 2:08

Do you know whether there was any community consultation in their decision to go ahead with the new special schools? Yeah,

Skye Kakoschke-Moore 2:19

I don't know if there was any community consultation prior to this announcement, I know at a national level, I hadn't heard that this was being put on the table as something that the government was considering. I think what's really important to emphasize is that it's crucially important that other states and territories don't take Queensland's lead in this and that they recognize that investing in a dual a dual track system of education options for students with disability is short sighted, and it's not going to result in better outcomes for students overall.

Emma Myers 3:00

This is becoming somewhat regular with the NDIS cuts this announcement. What do you make of all of these announcements being dropped unexpectedly and there's no lead up to it. What do you make of that?

Skye Kakoschke-Moore 3:23

It we are in the midst of possibly a once in a generation reform period when it comes to disability policy in Australia, so we're not only grappling with the recommendations of the disability Royal Commission, the NDIS review changes to the NDIS legislation, a report was released today by the Grattan Institute that proposed a different way to fund early intervention in Australia, and now we're seeing states and territories make announcements as part of their state budgets. The community is feeling quite overwhelmed, and when you're spread so thin, it can be really hard to keep up with everything that's changing, and feeling like you can have the bandwidth to really advocate strongly when there are so many different things going on that are important to you and your family and the families that organizations work with it's incredibly difficult to try and stay on the front foot amongst all of these changes.

Emma Myers 4:28

Have you heard any what's the response been from the disability community as a result of this announcement?

Skye Kakoschke-Moore 4:37

So cider is one of the CO conveners of the Australian Coalition for inclusive education or ACIE. This is a national coalition, and our Queensland based members are working incredibly hard to make sure we can campaign against this decision. It's really heartbreaking. Being in meetings and in email threads about the changes that all this funding that the Queensland Government has announced because the decades, families and students and teachers have been campaigning for a truly inclusive mainstream education system in Queensland, and yet, we've got a decision last week that is not one step forward, but two steps backwards, but takes us 1020, 100 steps backwards in terms of the progress that the inclusive education movement has made to date.