Editorial: Special-needs children need more funding

An additional $62 million was allocated to special education in this year's budget. Photo / Thinkstock

If the public was asked to choose the most worthy use of their taxation, children in need of special education would probably be at or near the top of the list. These are children born with neurological disabilities of various degrees and they usually need a personal teacher aide in the classroom to make educational progress. Schools can apply for additional funds to try to meet their needs but the Herald inquiry this week has found their needs are exceeding the services provided.

The parents we have met in our pages this week have to be dedicated battlers for their child's human rights. This is a country that gives all citizens a right to be educated to the extent of their ability and these parents know their children can do well with a little help.

Sometimes it is simply physical help. We met Merryn Straker, whose 8-year-old son Oscar has ataxic cerebral palsy. His funding provides a teacher aide for 11 hours a week. Mrs Straker, who has her own business, pays the aide to stay on each day and help Oscar open his lunch.

Others need physical restraint. Our reporter was told of autistic "runaway" children being refused enrolment at schools because there were not enough extra staff, or fences, to ensure they stayed in the grounds.

We ask a great deal of schools now that "mainstreaming" of children with special needs has replaced the dedicated institutions of the past. State schools are obliged to accept all enrolments from their locality. It is illegal to turn away these children, illegal even to restrict their attendance to the hours for which they have a paid teacher aide. But many parents we interviewed had experienced a rejection. It is heartbreaking to be told your child is not welcome, no matter how reasonable and sympathetic a principal's excuses may be.

Schools have to consider all their charges and there may be a limit to the number of special-needs children any school can accommodate. But physical and neurological disabilities occur fairly evenly through the population, no school need bear a disproportionate load so long as all meet their responsibilities. Those that do not place an unfair burden on the rest.

An additional $62 million for special education in this year's Budget lifted its annual allocation to $530 million. This is spread among 80,000 children nationwide with a disproportionate amount, $193 million, set aside for 9000 with severe disabilities.

There are about 1500 new applications in the category of higher need every year and the ongoing resourcing scheme (ORS), as it is called, seems to be funded for only two thirds of them, leaving many families to bear additional costs themselves.

Some can afford to pay privately for additional teacher aide hours, some pay for home-schooling. Some evidently prefer to pay lawyers to fight for a slice of the ORS fund. Lawyers told our reporter an independent tribunal is needed to make more consistent decisions. That would cost money that is being better spent in classrooms.

Most taxpayers could probably nominate several other public expenses that would be better used for these special children.