Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 3:12:50 to 3:19:14
Examination of how changes to NCCD funding and the SRS review affect special assistance schools that serve highly vulnerable students and those impacted by trauma.
Topics: Education, Government spending
Speakers: Ms. Meg Brighton, Senator Matt O'Sullivan, Mr. Tony Cook, Unknown Speaker
so Miss Brown will you use the term right sizing mean sounds like a different way of saying cut I suppose um so I use the word cut um because what you're talking about here is a measure which achieves $472 million in savings if I understand it over the four uh over the forward estimates so how does that when you've got such a sizable cut, h how can that not result in a reduction in the delivery of support for for students in in these
schools? >> As Mr. Brighton said, it's actually ensuring the right children are getting the right levels of support. And when we have gone in with some of our audits where we've had children um allocated to particularly c particular categories of support, we have found that some of those students either don't need that level of support or actually need more support. And so there's movement between the two. Um and that's really important to ensure that that money is targeted in the best way possible. But again, Miss Brighton will be able to give some specific examples of that.
>> Yeah. So, Senator, some of the things we have um we have seen is as Secretary Cook said um is the student uh at the at the level of support that they need as one element. So, sometimes they are underdone, sometimes they are overdone, but importantly then are they getting that support? So, is that support being provided by the school to the student? And that's a really important part of this um how we're looking at it. So it's not only what is the student assessed at and what do they need but is the school actually providing that. Uh and then we have also through the consultation work that we did for these higher levels of adjustment um the requirement is that the student who needs the most intense level of support is getting it um over 10 consecutive weeks. We also heard through the consultation that sometimes that's pretty complex when you look at the student characteristics of some of those students that need it. So in the new guidelines, we have also offered an option where it's either 10 consecutive weeks of evidence or it's 20 cumulative weeks of evidence to give schools a lot more flexibility about how they um uh demonstrate the need of that individual student. Um and what our audits have pointed to just as Secretary Cook said is not only um some students not being classified at high enough levels, we've had other students that have either um the uh the the nature of the disability or the nature of the adjustments necessary have been overstated or sometimes uh there's not even a disability at all in that young person.
>> Have you had uh feedback from special assistance schools in particular? Um, these are schools that are working with some of the most, in fact, arguably definitely the most vulnerable students in each state and territory. uh the the ones that I've been to in Western Australia uh have have students with very high levels of need, not necessarily disabilities from a you know that might be measured under under or captured under this but you know very significant home lives and so um backgrounds and issues. Um the next step for the you know they don't fit within a mainstream school system. they've maybe been expelled from those schools um for behavior reasons and other reasons. Essentially the next step for these students and to be really blunt about it and I don't mean to be impolite but is either uh is either in hospital because um them um you know self harming and and those sort of issues or in fact you know suicide uh and uh or or or in correction centers because of the the crime that they can lead to. Um these schools are on their knees is what I'm hearing. Um I know of one particular school that's that's having to close um campuses around the state of Western Australia um because of I guess there's a bit of a conflation of the the change in um how they're I think they're deeming or how they're assessed under the SCS and and then this issue here with the NCCD. Um, so are you are you getting representations from those schools about the multitude of issues that that they're contending with and their viability going forward?
>> So there's a a few elements um to that. There is no doubt that our schools need to be able to support young people who are um impacted by trauma, who are homeless, who have a degree of complexibility and vulnerability around their lives. And our schools need to be able to provide a supportive place for them to come to and to learn and to grow. Um the um under the uh school's reform and uh funding agreement we have a piece of work um which is going to be a review of the schooling resource standard and the scope of that review it's in the process of being settling settling uh but one of the things we will look at is does the SRS um as it's currently um constructors have regard to the contemporary cost of schooling and particularly as we look at um those elements of intersectionality about different vulnerabilities. Uh so I've said to the SAS schools that I've met with that as part of the SRS review, we
will >> seem to be in this no man's land of like there there are they got unique needs compared to the rest of the school population.
>> Yeah, Senator, and that's why as part of the SRS review, we will look at that. The other thing I would say is that um uh specialist assistant schools aren't subjected to the or the policy of the capacity to contribute doesn't apply to them. Um we have been working with some um special assistant schools that may have made reference to uh reshaping of their programs. Uh when that happens, we work with them. Some of those schools have significant asset holdings and cash holdings that actually what they can do is they can deploy those holdings which is often accumulation of Australian government funding that they can use to continue to support students.