19 August 2015

Jeremy Rockliff, Minister for Education and Training

Ministerial Taskforce Report

I welcome the Ministerial Taskforce’s report into Education for Students with Disabilities that has been released today and I am pleased to announce we are investing an additional $1 million to implement recommendations.

The Hodgman Liberal Government is committed to ensuring every Tasmanian student can achieve in an inclusive environment that is responsive to individual needs.

This is why one of my first actions as Minister was to appoint this Taskforce, which has worked hard over the past year. I know a number of parents and teachers believe we can do better to meet the needs of  children, and I agree.

The report acknowledges the significant work that is already being undertaken by our educators, families and support services and has also identified opportunities for change, including:

• Ensuring all schools are ready and responsive to the needs of students with disability;
• Providing ongoing professional learning with a focus on inclusive education qualifications;
• Developing a partnership that recognises and values the expertise of families;
• Taking a holistic view of the range of resources available to support schools; and
• Improving the monitoring, assessing and reporting of individual student’s progress.

We are taking immediate action to invest up to $1 million to implement the following recommendations:

• Provide incentives and scholarships to increase the number of teacher and teacher assistants with recognised formal education qualifications;
• Implement a pilot project in a number of schools to trial practice models for support staff and classroom teachers to more effectively work together to improve student learning; and
• Provide access to Family Partnership Training, to assist school communities to partner more effectively with families.

We will continue to work with community as we consider the remaining recommendations.

As a Government we have already invested an additional $1 million to bring the total disability funding in 2015 to $71.9 million; the $1 million for the Taskforce recommendations is in addition to this.

We have also established an autism-specific satellite unit at Lindisfarne North Primary School, and we are investing more than $6 million in new infrastructure to ensure students with a disability have the best learning environment for their individual needs.

I would like to sincerely thank the Chair of the Taskforce, Cheryl Larcombe and all the Taskforce members for their dedication to bringing positive change for students with a disability.

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