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I’m Fiona Sharkie, Chief Executive of Amaze and I’m here to update you on some big announcements made by the Victorian Education Minister in the last week.
Some background: The Amaze strategic plan was developed in 2015 with a long term, 25 year time frame to achieve our aspiration for a society that respects the dignity of every autistic person and offered them real opportunities to participate and contribute.
Key within this aspiration were priorities of education and employment as being critical in allowing all autistic people to contribute to their world.
Back in 2015, Amaze was actively involved in the consultations for the review of the Program for Students with Disabilities (known as the PSD). After that review, Amaze approached the Department of Education about what we saw as the need to create a specific strategy for autistic students.
The time was ripe with an Education Minister and government that had committed to “education for all, where ALL meant ALL”.
From there we examined all the evidence on what makes a good education experience and system for autistic students and produced a report for government, which outlined the important elements of such a strategy and what it would need to include.
Five years on, we saw the Education Minister launch Australia’s first Autism Education Strategy yesterday with those important elements included, and more. It was a big moment for Amaze, but most importantly for the Victorian autism community.
The new Autism Education Strategy comes after the announcement of the Disability Inclusion, Education for All reform. Together these 2 initiatives promise to transform the educational experience and attainment levels of autistic students so they are able to achieve what we know they’re capable of achieving.
There are many great parts of this Strategy. Most importantly, it seems there is something for every autistic student – those who receive individual funding and those who don’t, who will now benefit from new funding and resources to ensure adjustments and supports are made for all autistic students.
The reform of PSD funding assessment process to be known as the new Disability Inclusion Profile is a game changer. It will replace an antiquated, unfair and unfit-for-purpose assessment that focuses on how disabled the student is. The new assessment will assess the needs of the student – academically and socially, in and out of the classroom – to show the school how the child must be supported in a holistic way by the whole school community and which will build on the student’s strengths.
This reform truly embraces the social model of disability where the emphasis is on the school system and the community to adapt, to allow all autistic students to thrive.
We know the majority of autistic school students are in mainstream schools and most don’t receive individual funding. This has often meant that these students and their families are told by the school “we don’t have funding for your child”.
The Disability Inclusion, Education for All reform changes that by allocating funding to every government school to build its skills and ability to ensure the needs of all autistic students are identified and supported. Funding like this has never been available to schools before.
Specifically, this investment will be spent on:
The pleas I’ve heard from families that “teachers need to understand what autistic students need to be able to learn” have been heard and responded to in this Strategy.
The Autism Education Strategy is an Australian first. All eyes will be on Victoria and we need to be ambitious. Transformational change takes time; the reforms will roll out over the next four years and I appreciate our community would wish this to be sooner. But changes will start to happen from next year.
Amaze’s aspiration is that by 2024 autistic students have a greatly improved educational experience and improved attainment levels. That enrollment at their local school is never refused, that unfair suspensions and use of restrictive practices never occur and where increasing numbers of autistic students are completing year 12 and moving on to further study or into work.
We’re now on the first step of this important journey to achieve the long awaited aspiration of true inclusion for all autistic students.