The NSW government has committed to trial giving schools disability funding on the basis of student need to reduce the prevalence of "diagnosis shopping".
The Sun-Herald reported in August that schools were pushing parents to obtain a diagnosis for their child that qualifies the school for extra funding to support the student with learning and behaviour.
Education Minister Sarah Mitchell tabled the progress report in Parliament on Thursday.Credit:AAP
Education Minister Sarah Mitchell tabled a progress report on "improving outcomes for students with disability" in Parliament on Thursday morning, outlining progress for 2019 and commitments for 2020.
"We are building the capacity of mainstream public schools so that all students, regardless of disability, can fully participate in learning at their local school and access teaching strategies and support tailored to meet their individual needs," Ms Mitchell said in a statement.
The report also pledged to develop a new behaviour strategy to reduce the number of students with disability who are suspended from school, following reports by The Sydney Morning Herald.
"We are concerned about the number of students with disability who are suspended from school," the report states. "We are committed to changing this, including by supporting schools to manage student behaviour."
Louise Kuchel from Parents for ADHD Advocacy Australia and her son Liam, who has ADHD, at their Balgowlah home. Credit:James Brickwood
More than 24,000 students with a confirmed disability attend NSW public schools, mostly in mainstream classes, the report said.
The government is providing $288 million this year for schools to deal with low-level disability and this is allocated as the schools see fit, without the students requiring a diagnosis.
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About 10,000 individual children with disabilities also receive a share of $200 million in "integration support funding", which is targeted funding based on a list of qualifying diagnoses.
The Sun-Herald reported that a national survey found one in five parents of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) - which does not attract targeted funding in NSW and several other states - had been pushed by the school to obtain a different diagnosis such as autism, oppositional defiance disorder (ODD) or extreme anxiety.
The report commits the government to "testing a more modern approach to the use of disability criteria to capture student need based on functional assessment rather than just a diagnosis".
A "functional assessment" - as used by the National Disability Insurance Scheme - means the funding would be allocated on the basis of what the child is able to do and the adjustments the school needs to make, regardless of the diagnosis.
The federal government already collects this information through its Nationally Consistent Collection of Data (NCCD) system to determine its share of disability funding.
However, while the NCCD funding goes directly to independent schools and Catholic Schools NSW, the state government reallocates public schools' share of the funding based on its own formula.
The report states that in 2020 the state government will explore the viability of using the NCCD data to inform the funding provided to schools through the equity loading and low-level adjustment for disability. However, the report did not mention tying the targeted funding to the NCCD.
Labor's education spokeswoman Prue Car said the NSW government "needs to make sure this isn't just another report and that the system is meaningfully improved".
"In particular, reports from parents, carers and families of children with ADHD that they have been pushed to get diagnoses that are contrary to their child’s situation are harrowing," Ms Car said. "This shouldn’t be happening in our school system in 2019."
Greens MP David Shoebridge said there needed to be a target to reduce suspensions of children with disability.
Louise Kuchel, a spokeswoman for Parents for ADHD Advocacy Australia, welcomed the "inclusive language" but called for concrete steps.
"It's great to see it said but we would like to see these things actually come into play," Ms Kuchel said. "There’s nothing there about timeframes and no actual description of what's going to take place, so at the moment it could be lip service and we want to see action."