Opinion & Commentary
Private hurdle for kids
The number of school students with disabilities is increasing every year. The government school sector has the largest number of these children. In 2007, 5.7% of enrollments in government schools were students with disabilities. In the non-government school sector, the proportion was 2.5%.
That non-government schools have fewer students with disabilities is not in dispute. What is debatable is the reason. It is not a case of non-government schools actively seeking to avoid enrolling children with educational disadvantages, but rather that non-government schools are denied the level of public funding that is available to these children in public schools.
A child with severe physical and intellectual disabilities is eligible for additional education funding of close to $36,000 if they are enrolled in a mainstream public school, as well as access to a variety of support services such as hearing and sight therapies and aids. With the notable exception of Western Australia, the very same child would receive about $6000 additional education funding in a mainstream non-government school, and would have limited access to support services. It varies slightly from state to state, but there is a gap of around $30,000 per student per year.
Parents unable to come up this extra money themselves are effectively locked out of the non-government school system. The funding gap is largest for the most severely disabled children, but the problem also exists for all children with mild to moderate disabilities, whose families are often already under significant financial stress.
Children with disabilities in non-government schools are not just disadvantaged by a reduced level of funding, but they are also restricted in the type of school they can attend. To be eligible for reasonable levels of funding, they must attend special schools, not mainstream non-government schools. Around a quarter of children with disabilities in the independent school sector attend special schools and these children are among the most severely disabled children in Australia.
People choose non-government schools for a variety of reasons. For parents of children with a disability, the need to be able to make the appropriate choice is critical. Children with even mild intellectual disabilities often find large state schools overwhelming and distressing. Being able to attend a smaller non-government school, with the same level of funding support, can make a profound difference in their life and their family’s quality of life.
The number of children with disabilities in non-government schools increased by 30 per cent in the years from 2003 to 2007, despite the funding and eligibility barriers. But it remains the case that many children with a disability who might benefit from a non-government school cannot access them because they can’t take their funding with them from the public sector.
Likewise, many non-government schools that would like to enroll more children with disabilities are unable to because the cost burden on the school is so high. These costs involve not just the child’s day to day education and care requirements but also any modifications to school infrastructure. The average low to moderate fee school may be able to absorb the cost of one or two children with disabilities by raising fees for other parents, or reducing spending in other areas, but any more than that sorely stretches the school’s financial capacity.
In acknowledgement of this, former federal education minister Julie Bishop commissioned a study by Monash University to investigate the possibility of making school funding ‘portable’ for children with disabilities. The report was completed in June 2007, but it was released only last week.
The report confirms that there is a ‘marked difference’ in the level of funding of students with disabilities in the government and non-government school sectors, although the aggregated and averaged figures in the report tend to mask the real extent of the disparity in funding for individual children when they are considered on a case-by-case basis.
Nonetheless, the report’s recommendations are strongly in favour of substantial reform, including constructing a funding model that more closely reflects the actual costs of achieving good outcomes for students with disabilities, and which provides a higher level of certainty for students with disabilities and their parents that they will receive at least the same level of support if they change schools, sectors or states.
The majority of non-government schools want to more equally share the responsibility of educating children with disabilities, but they can’t do it from their existing share of the resources. Parents just want funding parity and equity of access for their children so they can give them the best quality of life possible.
Jennifer Buckingham is a research fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies
