Program for Students with Disabilities Review

What Does It Actually Mean?

In 2015, a review of the Program for Students with Disabilities (PSD) was undertaken. In
April 2016, the report of the review was released, along with the governments response.
Overview
Perhaps the one key finding that sums up the results of the review is this.
While the PSD delivers substantial funding to support students with disabilities, there are
significant weaknesses in its design, implementation and accountability.
The most concerning aspect of the PSD review, particularly given that it is only one
component of the broader approach by the Department of Education and Training (DET) to
educate students with disabilities, is the re-statement of flaws, limitations and barriers that
have been documented for decades.
This indicates that the senior bureaucrats responsible for the education of students with
disabilities have to date disregarded previous findings and recommendations students with
that suggest students with disabilities cannot access their education on an equal basis to
others.
DET itself partially addressed this history on p35 of the PSD review report1 setting out the
numerous publications addressing Victorias attempts to ensure students with disabilities
were able to access their education. Curiously, referring to reports between 1982-1992, DET
claims the impacts of the reports were the Beginning of cultural shift that placed Victoria at
the forefront of national and international practice. Apart from the fact that there is no
evidence for this statement, more recent findings on the Program for Students with
Disabilities include, but are not limited to, the following.
May 2007
Turner v Department of Education and Training (Anti Discrimination) [2007] VCAT 873
Fourth, my findings indicate that there are a number of serious shortcomings in
different aspects of the PSD, particularly the language disorder category of that
program. There seems to be an urgent need for comprehensive and expert review of
the program. I would urge the government to undertake that review. [594]
[emphasis added]
August 2012
Conclusions Victorian Auditor General Report Programs for Students with Special
Learning Needs. (Special Learning Needs Report)

Since 2006, DEECD has distributed more than $2.6 billion to schools through the PSD.
However, DEECD does not have the information it needs to determine whether
PSD funding is being used efficiently and effectively. Concerns raised about this
by VAGO in 2007 still have not been adequately addressed and instead of having five
1

http://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/about/department/PSD-Review-Report.pdf

years worth of high-quality data about the program, the department still knows very
little about its impact on the educational outcomes of supported students. pviii
[emphasis added]

September 2012
First Main Finding in relation to the PSD, amongst other critical main findings, from the
Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission's "Held Back - the experiences
of students with disabilities in Victorian schools (Held Back Report)
While over 20,000 students currently receive additional assistance through Program
for Students with Disabilities (PSD) funding provided to government schools,
feedback from parents and educators reveals considerable concerns about how
the program is structured, delivered and held accountable for educational outcomes.
p152 [emphasis added]

The snapshot above raises issues either about the competence of DET senior personnel
over the years, or the absolute disinterest in ensuring that students with disabilities can
access their education. Or both.
Through many Secretaries, Deputy Secretaries and Regional Directors, the situation has
remained unchanged. This indicates that at the Minister/Secretary level, no one has felt it
necessary or important to act on past reports and require employees of DET to have key
performance criteria that involved outcomes for students with disabilities.
The recent media around the investigation into Bendigo SDS, with Minister James Merlino,
Secretary Gill Callister, and Acting Deputy Secretary Bruce Armstrong all indicating support
for the school despite staff being trained in the use of pressure points, the use of cages in
classrooms, the prolific use of locked pens throughout the school and many more barbaric
and inhumane practices, indicates that the humane treatment of students with disabilities is
unimportant. This does not augur well for a genuine interest in their academic welfare.
Recent Initiatives
In the governments response to the review2 it outlines a number of recent initiatives that will
allegedly improve students achievements, engagement and well-being.
1. A positive initiative is that from September 2016, all registered teachers will have to
have either undertaken relevant professional development in the last two years or
take it before renewing their registration in September 2017. This initiative, unlike a
number of others, has a mandatory component which means that Victorian parents
can assume that it will actually happen.
2. The new Principal Practice Leader position is a completely inadequate response to
the problem of violence against students with disabilities by teaching staff throughout
Victorian, in multiple Victorian schools. At the same time this position was created,
DET for the first time endorsed the formally seclusion of students with disabilities3.

2
3

http://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/about/department/PSD-Review-Response.pdf
October 2015 DET behaviour policies will

3. Improving early years screening for learning difficulties by enhancing an online tool is
only useful if it is mandatory, and teachers know what to do after learning difficulties
have been diagnosed.
4. All Victorian government schools are now able to access the ABLES curriculum
assessment and reporting tool. This non-evidence based assessment tool has
already been available for years. It is rarely used, and as with other assessments,
unless teachers know what to do with the assessment findings, it is of little use.
5. There is a focus on buildings.
6. Direct funding to students is absent.

The Findings
Putting aside the overall finding that the PSD is failing students with disabilities, there were a
number of findings that have already been brought to the attention of DET through reports,
parent complaints and numerous legal claims against DET under discrimination legislation.
The key findings can be found on p8 of the government response document.
Consistent with the repetition of earlier broad-based findings over the decades about the
failure by DET to adequately educate students with disabilities, these recent findings
continue to highlight distinct problems that have already been raised with DET, and which
they have ignored. One example is in relation to Individual Learning Plans.
Currently, the way tailored Individual Learning Plans are developed is inconsistent,
and fails to adequately record and drive the progress of students. p14 government
response.
This may be familiar to parents and advocates. This is why.
Individual learning plans (ILP) are the lynchpin in the government school system for
setting and delivering on learning goals for students with disabilities. However, not all
students who should have a plan have one. The development, quality and monitoring
of these plans is inconsistent and there is no systemic monitoring to ensure that
these plans are of a reasonable quality and are being implemented. Held Back
Report p 82, 2012
Schools are not .. developing consistent, high quality Individual Learning Plans..
DEECD does not identify and monitor the progress of individual students with
special learning needs so is not informed of their educational outcomes. Special
Learning Needs Report p 21, 2012
[all emphasis above added]
Of equal concern to the fact that DET receive the same information repeatedly and do not
meaningfully respond, DETs report to the Victorian Auditor General in 2014, in relation to
their progress against recommendations in relation to individual learning plans states this
An online professional learning program is also being delivered, statewide, to
provide clearer guidance and training for teachers on how to get the most from
student support groups and how to develop and implement meaningful and
effective individual learning plans. Further work will occur in 2014 in accordance

with the Commonwealth response to the recommendations of the Report on the

Review of the Disability Standards for Education.p554
[emphasis added]
Two years later, nothing has changed.
And in relation to integration aides, or education support staff.
Despite this, stakeholders reported some concern that not all ES staff are
adequately qualified to support students with disabilities to learn, and that this has
become the default use of PSD funding.
Stakeholders also raised the issue of employing unqualified staff in education
support roles. PSD Review Report pp 80, 81
Again, this may be familiar to parents and advocates.
The sole qualification for an integration aide or education support worker is a
working with children check. Most principals reported that they selected aides based
firstly on personality fit and then experience.
A senate inquiry into the education of students with disabilities in December 2002
concluded that most teacher aides have no specialist training in teaching for
disabilities and a great many lack even basic training.
The report recommended that, within a reasonable period, all teacher aides should
be qualified in special education from an accredited teacher aide training course.
A decade on, the issue of unqualified aides remains unresolved. This is
compounded by broad role definitions, which in some cases result in aides taking on
teaching responsibilities for students with special learning needs. Special Learning
Needs Report p 24 2012
[emphasis added]
And from the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission.
Four out of 10 integration aides in our survey reported that they did not feel
adequately trained and supported. This is disturbing when, for many students with
disabilities, the integration aide is the person on whom they are most reliant at
school.
There are currently no formal qualifications required to work as an integration aide
in a Victorian school. Submissions also highlighted problems faced by
integration aides, due to the significant pressures they face, a lack of experience
and a lack of formal training to address the needs of students with disabilities.
Overall, the combined responses from both parents and educators indicate that the
role of integration aides, including their remuneration, qualifications and status in the
school, needs urgent attention given the crucial role they play in supporting
teachers and students with disabilities in Victorian schools. Held Back Report
pp173-174 2012 [emphasis added]

The above only addresses a few of the findings in the report. Multidisciplinary teams are
another area that have been repeatedly raised and continue to be, with no action. There are
more. However critically, these findings raise a number of important questions.

Responses to Audits 2012-13 Performance Audit Recommendations Victorian Auditor General's

Office February 2015

 Is DET actually capable of addressing these problems?

How can the same problems been raised with DET, some of them for decades, and
not be addressed?
Is the issue one of supreme indifference, rather than competence?
Stakeholders are entitled to understand what is stopping DET from meaningfully and
competently responding to problems that, while prolific, are not difficult to remedy.
Until we know the answers to these questions, there can be no confidence in any of the
actions DET will take forward.
Recommendations
DET have accepted 21 of the 25 recommendations, the four left being the most important of
the 25, reform of the PSD.
This review will not list every recommendation, but gives the following guidance to readers.
When reading the recommendations and their acceptance, it is important to note the
following context of DET operations.
The formal position of DET is that anything that is labelled a guideline, does not
need to be adhered to.
Similarly frameworks, guidance and support materials lack purpose unless
teaching staff are directed to follow them.
Anything that is an opportunity, does not need to be taken advantage of.
When teachers are given access to tools, that access is optional.
When resources are made available, one can take advantage of them, or not.
When a recommendation calls for someone to consider an idea, the consideration
without action meets the recommendation outcome.
An investigation does not require any action at the end.
The encouragement of schools and teachers to participate in something means
nothing.
Raising awareness means little, as opposed to mandated training and direction.
Unless any strategy developed is mandated, it is of little use.
Anything online is usually optional.
Despite the word evidence being used prolifically throughout the review report and
government response, DET continue not to identify or mandate evidence-based
programs to support students with disabilities in schools.

When one reads every recommendation and response, immediately those recommendations
that rely on the language used above need to be seen in the context of possibly, meaning
nothing. That takes care of most of the recommendations.
It seems that a great deal of money is being spent on regional office staff and developing
materials. This is a great concern for parents, advocates, parents and principals who simply
want schools/students resourced directly.
The $3 million funding to support the student is transitioning to Year 7, has not indicated an
understanding of solving the problem of what happens after the transition.
It is not clear that the $17 million for children with autism and dyslexia is being provided
directly to schools, rather than another optional resource program.

The suggestion to establish a Victorian Inclusive Education Institute, and holding up the
Victorian Deaf Education Institute as a model, is another example of money being directed
into jobs for DET staff rather than direct funding to schools. It is of particular concern when
one thinks of the millions of dollars that have gone into the Victorian Deaf Education
Institute, which has not managed, despite being in operation for years, to write or in fact
implement a policy that guarantees deaf students the right to Auslan Interpreters, despite
such a right to being clearly enshrined in case law and international human rights law.
However the most frightening recommendation, is Recommendation 7, which is Develop
options to support special schools to become centres of expertise to support local
mainstream schools to implement inclusive education.
There is no evidence at all that Special Schools have expertise that either warrants them
becoming centres of expertise or being in any position to be advising mainstream schools.
Simply the fact of doing something for decades does not equal expertise unless one can
prove successful outcomes. Given the DET aversion to data collection and analysis, there
are no recorded outcomes. Therefore we are left to form a view on the evidence of
individuals, and anecdote, and the anecdotes are frightening.
The recent Federal Senate report on violence, abuse and neglect of people with disabilities5
sets out the treatment of students with disabilities in schools in Chapter 3. It is special
schools that are best known for their internal and external lockable seclusion rooms, physical
and mechanical restraint.
The recent Federal Senate report on the educational outcomes of students with disabilities in
Australia6 indicates our nations failing in this regard, however the anecdotes indicate that it
is special schools that are the least interested in academic outcomes for students with
disabilities.
The culture of special schools is often incompetence in dealing with behaviours of concern
leading to violence, and to quote the Senate report above, babysitting of students with
disabilities.
So in the absence of any evidence of expertise, but with a plethora of anecdote, and
evidence of individual student experience, we have a recommendation to have special
schools pass on their practices to mainstream schools.
If anything, generally speaking, mainstream schools at least have a culture of learning and
expectation. Students with disabilities are utterly surrounded by students who are learning
and role modelling positive behaviours.
For an indication of some of the Victorian special schools and their history of dealing with
students with disabilities, go to www.educationrights.com.au/Schools List.

http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/Violence_ab
use_neglect/Report
6
http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Education_and_Employment/stu
dents_with_disability/Report

Summary
Unless the following is put into place, it is unlikely that academic, behavioural and social
outcomes for students with disabilities will improve:
1. DET senior personnel having key selection criteria in relation to academic outcomes
and inclusion for students with disabilities.
2. The cessation of almost every DET policy, procedure and guideline being optional.
3. Clear directives given about evidence-based programs and approaches.
4. Mandatory professional development rather than online opportunities.
5. Immediate engagement of external professionals to begin working with schools that
have a history of violence against students with disabilities.
6. PSD becoming a program that responds to individual need rather than diagnosis.
Julie Phillips
23 April 2016