May 16, 2017

Home educated school students miss out on disability support services

Every child in NSW has a legal right to access and participate in education, regardless of disability or special needs.
                                               

But Carly Landa said there were "definitely negative consequences" to sending her son to school.

Louie, now 11, went to school for three years before his parents decided to home-school him.

However, the decision to home educate children with disabilities or special needs means they do not receive the support provided to other students - a situation parents want the NSW government to address by funding services.

A NSW parliamentary inquiry into students with a disability or special needs has been told many parents choose home education because schools do not adequately cater to their children's needs.

One parent gave the inquiry a harrowing account of the bullying experienced by her 11-year-old daughter, who has a moderate intellectual disability and autism.

Complaints to the school were given short shrift, the parent said. "Their response was that her being hit was good opportunity to teach the hitter that they shouldn't hit."

The parent said the situation was even worse at another school, where the girl and other girls in her class were indecently assaulted by the boys.

The inquiry, which will conduct its next hearing in Shellharbour on Friday, was told boys in the class would "regularly masturbate" in the classroom, with teachers refusing to take action to stop the behaviour.

The parent said she turned to home education after the Department of Education refused her application for distance education: "I have to rely on a carer payment from Centerlink (sic). My ability to earn an income and provide for my daughter has been devastated."

The HEA's submission included the experience of a parent resorting to home education after her son, who had learning disabilities, suffered escalating violence and bullying at school.

Nicole Rogerson, the chief executive of Autism Awareness Australia, said successive state governments had paid "lip service" to inclusion.