Education and disabilities

Education is a key issue for children and young people with disability. This blog post will outline the disability issue in Australian education and highlight areas of concern. Inequalities within education seem to be an issue in society that always gets pushed ‘under the rug’ for another day.

Making improvements for students with disability has been an important part of the education reform program. However it is no good introducing new policies for education without actually informing public interests about them. Knowledge of these concerns must be highlighted in education. I didn’t even know that such policies existed.

All children in Australia have the right to an inclusive education. However, there are many barriers to the realisation of this right in the lived experience of children and families. “Additional barriers include negative and discriminatory attitudes and practices, lack of support to facilitate inclusive education, and inadequate education and professional development for teachers and other professionals” (Cologen 2013:4). The paper idenfies many key concerns in Australian education in regards to students with disabilities. Previous disability schemes failed to define key elements of ‘inclusive education’, and this paper clearly highlights the effects of micro and macro exclusion for a student with disability.

“Exclusion impacts negatively on children who experience disability, their peers and the adults who engage with them, resulting in marginalisation, stigmatisation and often bullying and abuse.112 While a common assumption is that abuse and bullying occurs only in mainstream settings, this is actually incorrect.113 By contrast, research provides evidence that despite higher teacher-student ratios and greater supervision the full range of bullying occurs in ‘special’ settings.114 While there is some variation in individual studies,115 particularly based on teacher or parent ratings, contrary to common perception, growing research evidence suggests that children who attend ‘special’ schools are more likely to experience bullying than children who attend mainstream settings, and that inclusive education is a key factor in reducing or eliminating bullying.116” (Cologan 2013:23)

This issue in Australian education is highlighted by Christina Ho in ‘School micropublics’. Ho defines a ‘micropublic’ as “a space where engagement and negotiation across cultures are unavoidable, as individuals from diverse cultures find themselves having to share a common social space”(Ho 2011:605). schools can be ideal micropublics as they throw together people, compelling them to engage in the everyday negotiations of sharing a social space. Are Australian schools good candidates for micropublics of cross-cultural encounter? In regards to disability students, micropublics create an atmosphere where bullying takes place. In my experiences students with disabilities that don’t interact with their school environment seem to be disregarded in activities. For example, my school had a student that had seizures every day in classrooms, however this student participative in many sporting and school activities and became known to everyone and people did share a social space.

To conclude people must advocate strongly for a better education system for students with disability, and has worked closely with the Australian Government on their reform program. It is essential that the direct experience of students and families informs the reform process. The introductions of the better schools plan, Australian education act 2013, schools disability advisory council and the disability standards for education are adding that extra step for a better education and for their to be less educational inequalities.

By Manuel Angelopoulos

EDST20702013Group5

Saturday, October 26, 2013

students with disability concerns

Education and disabilities

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