AEU in Canberra on Public Education Day

A group of school principals, teachers and education stakeholders were in Canberra on Public Education Day seeking support for the current Gonski needs-based funding agreements.

Correna Haythorpe, Federal President of the Australian Education Union said “The Government’s policy clearly shows us that Prime Minister Turnbull and Education Minister Birmingham have turned their backs on the students and schools who were relying on the funds that were to be delivered in 2018 and 2019.

“We are here today to remind politicians – particularly crossbenchers – about the impact the Government’s policy will have on our school communities. It’s time Senator Nick Xenophon and the NXT, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young and the Greens come forward and renew their commitment to Gonski needs-based funding.

The AEU also claimed that more than half of all students with disability are missing out on the funded support they need at school.

Haythorpe said the 2016 Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on Disability (NCCD) figures confirmed the crisis in disability education.

“This annual census shows 469,000 students have a disability or learning difficulty but schools are only receiving funding to support 200,000 students with disability,” said Haythorpe.

This is the second year that the NCCD has gathered data on disability from every school in Australia.

• The 2016 NCCD data shows that 12.4% of students have an ‘extensive, substantial or supplementary’ disability which requires funded support at school. This is similar to the 12.5% figure in the 2015 data.
• This means that over 469,000 students require funded support at school for a disability or learning difficulty.
• The Productivity Commission’s 2017 report on government services showed just 200,168 students were receiving funded support at school in 2015.
• Public schools report 13.1% of students have a disability and require funded support.

Data from the AEU’s 2017 State of Our Schools survey shows that 87% of principals reported having to shift funding from other parts of their school budget to assist students with disability. It also found that:

• 96% of principals report having students with disability at their school, and 76% say they don’t have the resources to meet their needs.
• Disadvantaged schools have higher rates of disability: 42% of principals of low-SES schools report at least 16% of students have a disability compared to 11% of high-SES schools.
• 84% of principals say they need more assistance for teachers in the classroom, 60% say they need more specialist support, and 48% say they need more funding for professional development.