Chapter 5 - Teacher training and professional development
5.1
A consistent message delivered to the committee
in most major submissions, and in the most persuasive advocacy of witnesses,
was the inadequacy of pre-service professional training of teachers in relation
to special education, and the poor provision of professional development
programs. The committee noted that trainee teachers might never be exposed to
the theory and practice of special education even over four years of
undergraduate training, and that even when professional development courses
were offered there was considerable doubt about their effectiveness given their
brevity.
5.2
The committee noted the views of some witnesses
which questioned the relevance of mandated special education components within
the Bachelor of Education degree. Whatever the validity of this view it has not
resulted in the provision of mandated intensive professional development
courses conducted for teachers in the early years of their service when the
relevance of skills attainment should be evident. Overall, the committee
concludes that professional training and development for teachers who now
routinely deal with students with a variety of disability needs to be
considerably improved.
5.3
The need for improvement arises from the fact of
wholehearted community acceptance of the need to bring into mainstream schools
students who would once have been separated into special schools or units. The
successful implementation of such a policy requires supplementary training of
teachers to deal with new classroom demands. While the committee is aware of
the diverse pressures applied to schools, to school systems, and to the
teaching profession, it nonetheless appears inexplicable that something as
fundamental to the operations of the school and the dynamics of the classroom
should have been subject for so long to an obvious skills gap and to a virtual
training vacuum.
Teacher training
5.4
A looming crisis in the supply of teachers has
been predicted for some years, and recent projections of teacher supply and
demand have confirmed the likelihood of the serious future teacher shortage
predicted in the 2000 Preston Report sponsored by the Australian Council of
Deans of Education. The broad findings of an earlier report of the Deans of
Education, making similar projections, were endorsed by this committee in its
1998 report into the status of the teaching profession.[1]
5.5
The effect of a teacher shortage on the
education of students with disabilities is likely to be more significant than
on the education of children who have no disabilities. There will be a loss of
experienced general and specialist teachers as they reach retiring age. The
situation was explained to the committee by a special school principal
intending to retire within five years:
The lack of trained staff is affecting not only specialist
schools but all schools. In initial basic teacher training there needs to be
quite a large component where young teachers are taught how to manage students
with disabilities and impairments, especially students with challenging
behaviour. The age population of the teaching work force means that many
teachers with expertise who have done quite a bit of university training in
special education will be leaving the work force within five years.
That will leave an enormous gap in expertise because the
training programs for teachers are not currently there across Australia. There
is no initial training so teachers come out with no skills.[2]
5.6
By the late 1980s, a number of university
programs that had previously provided teacher training and research in this
field were experiencing difficulty in sustaining viable levels of student
enrolment. In the period from 1987 to 1997, five university teacher training
programs closed, and in the same period four out of seven existing teacher
education programs related to sensory disabilities closed.[3] Changing priorities for course
management and delivery in universities exacerbated this difficulty. Minimum
enrolments in both undergraduate and postgraduate programs have risen steadily
since that time. The committee sought evidence on the decline in participation
in coursework degrees relating to student disabilities. It was told:
The evidence is in enrolment of students in postgraduate
coursework degrees. In the education faculties of some universities, the
introduction of full fees for those courses has virtually wiped out their
postgraduate courses. That is not true at a university like Sydney, but then
Sydney is very different from the others, and when this happens people tend to
look around and think, ‘Where will I spend my money if I have to spend it.’ But
when you couple that with the fact that the Department of Education in New
South Wales, for example, no longer supports teachers when they enrol in
postgraduate coursework degrees, as they used to, you can see that there is a
considerable disincentive for teachers to enrol in such degrees.[4]
5.7
The committee, not surprisingly, found
education faculties in universities offering a wide variety of courses. All of
them had the capacity to offer course components in special education. Only in
New South Wales and Western Australia are such units mandatory.
5.8
The committee asked the NSW Department of
Education and Training about its requirements of education faculties in
universities in the state. It was told that since 1995, all undergraduate
teacher training programs in New South Wales must provide a mandatory component
of special education within the training program. The department claimed a
contribution to course design, with components being endorsed by the department
when they were amended. Any graduate from any of the state’s universities which
did not have a mandatory component in special education was not employable by
the Department of Education and Training.[5]
The department repeated its assurance that regular consultation took place
between the universities and the department over special education course
content, while making the point that universities treated the content in ways
they believed to be most appropriate.[6]
5.9
The committee notes these assurances in the
light of evidence it received from Dr Paul Whiting, an academic on the staff at
the School of Education at the University of Sydney:
...the New South Wales
government said to the University of Sydney and to all of its universities, ‘If
you do not have an appropriate course, we will not employ your graduates,’
which is a pretty strong incentive for a university to comply. But in the last
10 years nobody has looked at the content of those courses; nobody knows what
is in them. The first director of special education who was involved in
implementing that mandate actually went to and inspected every university to
see what was involved in these courses, but it has not been done for 10 years.[7]
5.10
While the committee has no interest in further
investigation of these competing claims, it is concerned that faculties of
education may, through lack of funding and staffing stringencies, be giving
less than the full measure of quality teacher training in special education,
and that this trend may not be sufficiently identified by employing
authorities.
5.11
Dr Whiting had other observations to make in
regard to the training of teachers in which components of special education had
to be included. Some of the consequences of ‘slimmed-down’ and ‘lean and
efficient’ training came as a surprise to the committee:
... now with four-year training for teachers there is no way that
we can run the courses that we used to run when we had three-year training for
teachers. We have had to cut courses, in which I have been personally involved.
In dealing with children with specific needs, we have had to cut courses in
half in terms of the hours that we allow for them, because we have gone to
four-year university training, instead of three-year college training. That is
very largely a matter of funding: universities cannot pay the staff to do it.[8]
5.12
The committee was later told that so much more
was required to be taught in general areas of the B.Ed degree, and that contact
hours in the former colleges of advanced education exceeded the current load
because lecturers are now expected, in the different environment of the
university, to devote more time to research. They are also more expensive to
employ in the current university funding regime.
5.13
Despite the fact that the requirements for
effective work in special education were not demanding, they were not being
met, according to Dr Whiting:
There is no question that teachers are still not being trained
to recognise these learning disabilities. That is all that we ask of teachers:
that they are able to recognise a learning disability when they see it and not
to confuse it with mental retardation, intellectual disability or misbehaviour.[9]
5.14
The committee regards such comments as a
depressing comment on the standards of teacher training courses. Nonetheless,
it is mindful of comments it heard from a Queensland academic, who said that
while he thought it appropriate to include material on disabilities in
undergraduate courses, this might not be related to any practice teaching student
teachers might do, and that the main concern for practice and new teachers was
classroom management and communication. Undergraduates were not very receptive
to instruction about the very high levels of skills required to deal with
students with disabilities. The committee assumes that developing such skills
is easier to tackle in this area when teachers have gained some general
experience in the classroom.[10]
The knowledge and skills would then appear to be far more relevant. Alas, the
committee received no information on the availability of professional
development courses which might effectively extend the theoretical and
practical knowledge of experienced teachers.
5.15
The only other state to make undergraduate units
in special education compulsory is Western Australia, following the
implementation of its Disability Services Plan 1995. All teachers trained in
Western Australian universities must complete an educational support unit in
their first year of study. The core compulsory units are typically for two
hours of lectures and tutorials per week over 14 weeks.[11]
5.16
One school principal informed the committee of
her misgivings about placing students with disabilities in mainstream classes
without adequate support. It was claimed that class sizes are too large for
their needs, and despite the fact that they are not independent learners, they
are forced to be such, as a result of the teacher needing to spend time with
other students:
These students
are being placed in classes with teachers who are not trained in [special
education]. This is a highly specialised field. Our teachers should not be
expected to [have] this knowledge and expertise. Such an expectation devalues
the specialist teacher who spends several years studying how to work with
students with disabilities and accumulating resources and expertise.
Mainstream teachers cannot hope to achieve this. The solution is for the class
teacher to attend a day’s course on the particular disability. Clearly this is
inadequate.[12]
5.17
The vast gap in
experience and expertise will be all the more stark because in many cases those
retiring will be the last of the comprehensively trained special education
teachers. The training programs which produced them were long ago disbanded and
skills are no longer taught. A special school principal informed the committee
of the implications of this neglect:
Recently I spoke to a group of exit students at a university and
asked 30 of them, ‘How many of you expect to be teaching a student with a
disability next year?’ and no-one put their hand up. I informed them that they
would not only have one student with a disability but five or six. The fact
that the institution had not even moved in that area to provide those skills
was going to cause those teachers frustration. Training is not only for
teachers but also for support staff—teacher assistants—as well. Much of the
funds that actually go through to schools are paid to the support staff person
without any training at all. In actual fact in lots of regular schools that
person is the person who delivers the program.[13]
5.18
All areas of
disability suffer from a shortage of properly trained teachers. A submission
from the parent of a deaf child, who has a strong professional interest in
education, has identified a problem for deaf children. He claims that at
present a very high number of teachers of the deaf know little or no Auslan,
and when faced with a deaf child who does know Auslan, they cannot teach this
child.[14]
The committee agrees with the submission which calls for efforts to be made to
train new teachers of the deaf with the full range of skills required.
5.19
The committee
accepts that the basic theoretical and practical knowledge of education to
which trainee teachers need to be exposed at university must cover a very broad
field, and that the ‘overcrowded curriculum’ is a particular feature of one
year courses like the Diploma in Education. The committee believes,
nonetheless, that as the challenge of dealing with students with disabilities,
including gifted children with disabilities, is now more commonly recognised,
there must be acknowledgment of this in university education courses. The
committee believes that what is current practise in new South Wales and Western
Australia should be followed in other states and in the territories, and urges
education departments and other employing authorities to negotiate with
universities on the provision of special education units.
Recommendation 10
The committee recommends that
all university teacher training courses include a mandatory unit on the
education of atypical students (including students with a disability and gifted
students), to familiarise trainee teachers with classroom methods appropriate
for students across the spectrum of ability.
Professional development
5.20
One recent study of special education has made
the observation that, in the short term, professional development is likely to
make a more significant contribution to the preparation of class teachers who
need to deal with the learning problems of students with disabilities. There is
evidence of increased demand for such courses, particularly in the area of
behaviour management, which are associated with learning difficulties.[15]
5.21
The balance of effort on providing effective
undergraduate training and effective post-graduate professional development was
a matter addressed by Professor John Elkin. The committee was told that trainee
teachers did not easily grasp concepts about teaching for differences, which
meant that much more attention needed to be paid to professional development.
Professor Elkin lamented the fact that there was nothing post-registration that
required a teacher to demonstrate increased knowledge or skill. The evidence
continued:
That is not to say that lots of professional development does
not happen, and a lot of teachers of their own accord go about getting extra
knowledge. But the reality is that some things, such as teaching the hard to
teach kids, do not make a lot of sense in the undergraduate program.
Undergraduate teachers are just not experienced enough; they have not wrestled
with these kids enough. One of the things that I argue is that, as it is true
in a number of other places in the world and as it is true in other professions
in Australia, one’s registration ought to be conditional upon meeting some
quantum of professional development upgrading.[16]
5.22
It is not surprising that professional
development programs are so much sought after by practising teachers. While
teachers are sceptical about the value of learning theory, the foundation of
teacher training courses, they may understand its relevance to practice once
they have experienced some hard realities in the classroom. The aim of teacher
education, it may be assumed, is to lay down a foundation of theory, the
principles of good curriculum, and instil some sound, basic teaching method.
Experience will build on this and, in particular, make much more intelligible
the connection between theory and practice. We have now agreed that four years
is adequate for initial training, with subsequent career-long growth of
knowledge and understanding. When asked how long teacher training should be,
one witness told the committee:
You could probably train them for six years! That is what it
feels like sometimes when you look at what you would like a teacher to learn.
If I could go to my own experience, I was experienced as a science teacher and,
when I went to do my school counsellor training course, I can remember looking
at the person teaching us about behaviour management and thinking, ‘That’s
where all that psychology falls in. That’s how it makes sense in the
classroom.’ I had had four years of study in psychology but had not related it
to my classroom practice until this specialist stood there and said, ‘This is
what you do.’ It clicked and all made sense. Until you have been in front of a
class, perhaps, it is very difficult to make sense of it too.[17]
5.23
In the committee’s view, this sentiment sums up
the reasons why a odd few days each year is an insufficient commitment to a
kind of learning which is far more useful and enriching than twice the
equivalent number of days in undergraduate teaching units.
5.24
The problem, as the committee found, is that
professional development remains an add-on service provided to teachers by
school systems which are either reluctant to spend money on it, or which cannot
afford to. The difficulty for system administrators is that most often, the
outcomes of professional development are difficult to measure. These and other
observations made in this section apply generally to professional development,
but have particular relevance to the need of teachers dealing with students
with disabilities.
5.25
Apart from the state education departments and
some other employing authorities, no person addressing the committee in any
other capacity had any praise for the efforts put into professional development
in the field of special education. The committee places little credence in the
assurances of state education officials when they justify the adequacy of
current provisions. The committee takes this to mean that the programs are
maintained more or less as they have been over a number of years. The committee
cannot think of any way in which it can assess, for the purposes of this
inquiry, the quality of current professional development programs in the teaching
of students with disabilities, and more significantly, it does not believe that
state and territory education departments have the capacity or the will to do
so either. Raw data may be available in some form, but assessment of quality
would be difficult, measured against the ideal model set out below.
5.26
Even if every teacher entering service had
exposure to theory and practice in dealing with students with disabilities as a
result of having done a B.Ed course, continuing professional development would
still be required to keep these teachers up-to-date and committed to good
teaching practice. Interestingly, some research done in 1995 by Dr Chris Forlin
showed that as teachers developed experience that were less likely to want to
have students with disabilities in their classes.[18] It is generally agreed
professional development programs need to focus directly on the real classroom
needs of teachers, and teachers themselves must have input into the planning
and running of the programs. Research indicates that a number of elements need
to be included in courses if they are to be effective. These are summarised in
a recent study:
- acknowledgment of participants’ fears and anxieties related to
students with disabilities and inclusion of students in regular classroom
settings;
- the introduction of new skills in areas such as the
individualisation of instruction, collaboration and classroom management;
-
learning a variety of classroom approaches; the opportunity to
observe other teachers working in situations where inclusion is successful;
- opportunities for collaboration between specialists and classroom
teachers; and
- opportunities for cooperative teaching between general and
special education teachers.[19]
5.27
The committee notes that a great deal of time
would need to be invested in any professional development courses which
included all these necessary characteristics, and it doubts whether any course
currently conducted anywhere would match these criteria.
5.28
The committee broadly concurs with the view
expressed by the Australian Education Union that the provision of professional
development is extremely inadequate throughout education, and that the area of
disabilities is no exception.[20]
The AEU has urged that professional development include awareness raising
courses covering the benefits of inclusion and ways of bringing it about,
including components on occupational health and safety, stress management and
instruction in physical restraint and other matters to do with difficult
students.[21]
State programs
5.29
Professional development programs are broadly
similar across all states and territories. There has been a trend toward
school-based global budgeting, which included provision for teacher release and
fees for courses. Regional or district level funding is also available in some states,
for instance in South Australia. Up to five days each year is typically allowed
for professional development leave, although this varies slightly across
systems, and not all teachers would take their full allocation. While teachers
in South Australia are obliged to spend five days a year on training because of
an award bargain, teachers from Victoria, for instance, are under no such
obligation. In that state, each school determines its expenditure priorities
based on program and staff development need.[22]
Courses are not always mandatory, except in cases where teachers are being
introduced to major system-wide curriculum initiatives. Nor do teachers
necessarily have the opportunity of attending courses of their choice as they
may not be offered.
5.30
Education Queensland has recently instituted
locally organised ‘staff colleges’ to coordinate professional development and
take responsibility for contracting instructors and teaching teams. It appears
to the committee that this is simply an administrative arrangement that must
have existed in some form for many years. In all respects Queensland appears to
run its programs in a similar way to other states.
5.31
The committee did not seek lists of courses
offered by the various agencies around the country on inclusive or special
education. It heard anecdotal evidence of the popularity of courses offered on
classroom management issues and dealing with difficult behavioural problems,
and considers it unlikely that there would have been a strong demand for
courses related to the inclusive curriculum, or that such courses would have
been promoted by schools and systems. Certainly, no evidence was presented to
suggest any other conclusion. Nor was any evidence presented on the
participation rate in professional development programs on inclusive education
or any related educational topic. Such information may not exist.
5.32
The Tasmanian submission proposed that the
Commonwealth demonstrate a commitment to the education of students with
disabilities by providing targeted funding for intensive professional
development courses in special education. It also suggested that the
Commonwealth provide one-off funding to enable a small number of teachers to be
trained to deal with students having low-incidence disabilities.[23]
5.33
University education faculties are key providers
of expert instruction for systemic professional development programs. This is
despite the fact that academic staff numbers are dropping and some areas of
specialisation are without instructors in some states. Education Queensland has
submitted that there is evidence of a significant decline in the professional
development functions of universities, with reduced opportunities for teachers
to access courses, and the capacity of universities to offer viable courses.[24] The committee heard in
Adelaide that the South Australian Department of Education funds 20
postgraduate certificate places each year at Flinders University.[25]
5.34
In the area of special education there are some
shining beacons, and there are doubtless many more outstandingly successful yet
unknown and unsung schools of excellence. One of the unfortunate
characteristics of education systems is the reluctance of their administrators
to give too much praise and recognition to particular schools and school
principals least it reflect adversely on the overall standards achieved by the
system. Some schools have come to the attention of the committee. It notes that
the Mater Dei School at Camden NSW, a special school run for the Wollongong
diocese, is currently providing professional development courses for teachers
from mainstream schools in the diocese. This involves teachers spending a week
at Mater Dei, working with teachers, observing behaviour management programs in
action, preparing individual student learning programs and taking part in
parent meetings to establish and agree upon learning outcomes for students.[26] This would seem to be an idea
worthy of adoption in all systems.
5.35
One submission pointed to the different
professional development needs of primary and secondary schools. The committee
gained a general impression that, notwithstanding difficulties with early
diagnosis of disabilities, primary schools and teachers were probably more
successful in dealing with disabilities in the classroom. It could also be
argued that in many respects it is easier to handle most forms of disability
with pre-adolescent children. Secondary schools are more complex organisations,
in which the increased exercise of student choice becomes a part of the
learning process. Teaching becomes more specialised, and this has an effect on
teacher workloads and priorities. The committee is aware that some designated
professional development days for secondary teachers are frequently taken up by
systemic programs relating to new curriculum. While the committee is not in the
position to comment on this need, it has concerns about the fact that such
matters are dealt with at the expense of new teaching method, particularly in
dealing with ‘difficult to teach’ students. It suggests that professional development
priorities in the secondary schools may need to be reassessed.
5.36
The
additional pressures faced by secondary teachers in accessing professional
development courses was explained by an Independent Education Union official to
the committee in Melbourne:
Can I also make the point in relation to professional
development for teachers that, as these students with disabilities—particularly
the students we have in our school—move up through school and into secondary
school, the gap in their learning becomes wider, and it impacts more profoundly
on secondary teachers than those in the primary school curriculum. Secondary
school teachers have a much wider range of students within their classrooms
with needs that have to be met within that classroom situation. Also,
considering that our secondary system is I think a very top-down system and
that we are heading students towards VCE studies, there is a huge range of
areas that schools are expected to cover curriculum-wise now and a huge range
of areas that teachers have to undertake professional development on to be
experts as such in their fields so as to deliver proficient programs to
students in schools.[27]
5.37
Finally, should a teacher find time to attend a
properly staged and structured professional development program, conducted by
expert curriculum practitioners, there is still one important consideration to
bear in mind before applying for or accepting a place. It is important to
consider whether the focus on inclusive principles and practices conforms to
the culture of the school from which the teacher comes. Research from the
United States suggests that even when teachers are well-trained in inclusive
teaching practice, these concepts and skills are likely to be abandoned in
favour of the prevailing attitude in the school.[28] For this reason alone,
professional development properly remains a matter for whole-of-school
decision, so that time and resources are not wasted on sending teachers to
courses facilitating ideas and skills which have no immediate application.
5.38
The committee believes that there is no more
important expenditure priority in special education than the task of developing
an effective national professional development scheme. The evidence seems to
point to the existence of an ad hoc arrangement in most states and
territories. Much more time is needed for professional development: time not
only for method instruction but for mentoring and for reflection. As one school
principal told the committee:
The training available to teachers in schools—and I call it
bandaid training—is an hour and a half, two hours or something like that after
school. It is usually run by another professional. In actual fact, it is very
difficult to resolve a long-term problem with a very short-term training
program. You might pick up a couple of good strategies but not get to actually
understand the philosophy behind letting a person with an intellectual
disability have time to make their decision.[29]
5.39
The committee has heard assurances from the
states that a range of courses are on offer to teachers but no evidence of how
well they are attended, how seriously schools take advantage of opportunities
available, and whether there is much, or any, effort made by schools to have
specially tailored courses in handling disabilities run for them. While the
committee understands the practical need for school autonomy in making
decisions as to professional development requirements, it believes that take-up
rates by individual schools need to be closely monitored by officials at the
relevant level. In theory, making schools responsible for their own
professional development arrangements should work to the advantage of schools,
and allow a more strategic approach to whole-of-school teaching skills
programs. Whether or not this is happening is beyond the capacity of this
committee to assess.
5.40
The committee notes that the Commonwealth
program, Teachers for the 21st Century—Making the Difference,
may be reaching the end of its funding life. The committee recommends that this
program be extended, with augmented funding, but be specifically directed to a
national professional development scheme targeted at lifting the performance
outcomes of teaching and learning in inclusive education. The committee
recommends that the Commonwealth, through MCEETYA, should set some broad
guidelines on the duration and structure of courses, and establish an
appropriate evaluation process.
Recommendation 11
The committee recommends that the Teachers for the 21st
Century—Making the Difference program should be extended as a national
professional development scheme, with funding augmented to target improved
performance outcomes for teaching and learning especially for atypical children
in all education settings.
Recommendation 12
The committee also recommends that the Commonwealth, through
MCEETYA, should set out broad guidelines on the duration and structure of
courses to be implemented through this national professional development
scheme, and establish an appropriate evaluation process.
Specialist skill shortages
5.41
The committee has conducted a number of
education inquiries in recent years in which it has drawn attention to the
training deficit. This is no more evident than in the field of special
education where skill shortages will become apparent over the next five years when
beneficiaries of the training ‘boom’ of the 1960s and 1970s are due to retire.
School counsellors are in a strong position to understand this problem. One of
them told the committee:
Because of their own training school counsellors are very rarely
trained to that level in psychology and they do not have people that they can
refer to. Basically in most professional areas you would expect that if people
do not have the expertise then they refer to people who do have the expertise.
That is part of the Australian Psychological Society’s code of conduct; it is
part of the Early Childhood Association’s recommended practices. Most true
professional organisations have that model, but it is very difficult if your
school counsellors cannot refer the child to somebody who has the relevant
knowledge—just the same as if GPs and psychiatrists cannot refer these children
to people who can provide and advise on the appropriate treatment. That is the
current situation: there is simply no-one to refer them to who has the expertise.[30]
5.42
One bright spot on the training front is in New
South Wales, where the committee commends the initiative of the NSW Department
of Education and Training in providing postgraduate cadetships in special
education for teachers working in or wanting to work in that area. It notes
that since 1999, 351 teachers have been trained through this program. Teachers
are paid their full salaries while undertaking full-time study. The committee
acknowledges that this is expensive, but notes that departmental officials have
described the program as ‘very valuable’.[31]
5.43
The Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Students
told the committee that across the country
there is a trend towards generic training of both mainstream teachers for
special education, and those who intend to specialise. This trend was based on
the incorrect assumption that inclusion in mainstreaming created a need for
broader based and more generic teacher education. The Institute was opposed to
this development because it would not work in the case of children with sensory
disabilities. There is, on the contrary, a need for highly specialised, highly
technical teacher training to support the needs of such children, especially
given the advances in technology in areas such as cochlear implementation and adaptive
technologies for children with vision impairment. Funding and infrastructure
support for such specialised training need to be improved.[32]
5.44
The Institute
reminded the committee of the reason for the likelihood of continued shortages
in specialised training:
In the period from 1987 to
1997, some five university based teacher training programs closed across the
country. In 1987, there were seven specialist teacher education programs
relating to the education of students with sensory disabilities; in 1997, there
were just three. In one of those cases, our program—in affiliation with the
University of Newcastle, which is the largest and most comprehensive in the
country—is almost entirely supported through the charitable sector. In the case
of the other two programs, one program at the University of Melbourne is
substantially supported by independent funding, and the other program is wholly
included within the university’s program.[33]
5.45
The training of specialists receives little
encouragement in most states. As the committee was told in relation to the
supply of specialists in visual impairment in Victoria:
One problem in getting teachers of the deaf is getting teachers
to do the postgraduate qualification. You have young grads coming out after
four years and, with so many jobs now available in mainstream schools where
they can get about $40,000 a year, the idea of doing a fifth year as a
postgraduate qualification—at the end of which you are not going to get any
more money and will have paid an extra year of HECS—is not attractive; there
are just no incentives. Additionally, advertised teacher-of-the-deaf jobs are
usually for just 12 months. Warrnambool has not been able to get someone to go
down there, but they have been only offering a 12-month tenure. Are you really
seriously going to attract people down there by just offering a job for 12
months? We have got to look at incentives for getting specialist trained
teachers of the deaf into areas of need, particularly in rural and regional
areas, and we have got to be creative in finding ways to encourage them to do
the training and then to take up jobs.[34]
5.46
Less populous states like Tasmania are
particularly affected by the trend away from specialist training. For reasons
to do with the static population growth and an ageing population, the demand
for specialist education courses in Tasmania has diminished to a point where
they have been discontinued, and vacancies where they remain have to be filled
from the mainland. There is a destructive spiral evident in the training of
specialists. As demand for their services diminishes, so does the capacity and
for further training. As a Tasmanian education official explained to the
committee:
One of our problems as a small system is that we simply do not
have the numbers to support training people for very specialist fields. We
cannot train teachers of the visually impaired or the hearing impaired. We do
not train therapists in this state. This is a major issue for us but we accept
the fact that there are simply not the numbers to generate the need for those
kinds of courses to be available. That is a very big issue for us. We would
love to have ways in which we could access specialist training for those kinds
of people.[35]
5.47
A brave face is made with the inevitability of
needing to introduce more broadly-based courses at university:
To be fair to the university, one of the main reasons they had
to close down one of their courses was that they had very small numbers and it
was very difficult for them to do them as separate courses. They have combined
them and now they are going to stream through into an education stream. We have
to be optimistic in this. We believe we will get some good graduates coming out
of it.[36]
5.48
There were complaints that itinerant specialist
teachers do not always have the full range of skills that their tasks required.
An example was given of the case of itinerant vision teachers, whose basic
training could have ranged from kindergarten to HSC maths:
There is no consistency in their training. They come into the specialist
vision training from any background then they work with a child of any age. So
you could have a maths trained high school teacher training and teaching a
kindergarten student or vice versa: Some of them have no background in
technology but are specialists in braille. Some of them have great experience
in braille but no experience with low vision. It is a broad range of skills
that they are required to have, but no one person can have all those skills—and
certainly no one teacher ever does. The problem is that they do not tend to
refer to specialists in their areas...So
you (can) have a teacher with a background in infants teaching and braille who
has no idea about workplace issues, work experience, independence training for
teenage vision impaired students—they do not have the background. Some do. Some
do well; some do not do well.[37]
5.49
The committee was told that vision impairment
was such a low incidence disability that there are not enough teachers going
through in each state for many universities to want to run a course; and that
there is probably a need for a national initiative for training these teachers,
possibly with distance delivery with a residential component.[38] The committee concurs with
this view.
5.50
The committee was also told of parents particular
concern about unavailability and inaccessibility of, adaptive technology
specialists in education for the visually impaired. Parents were aware that
there were IT consultants within the system, but knew nothing about their
expertise or availability to work with adaptive technologies. Parents could
perceive this to be a lack of understanding on the part of school or system
authorities of the importance of skills required by students in relation to
their sighted peers.[39]
5.51
The Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Students’
submission identifies a need for government support to subsidise the provision
of highly specialised and high quality training options in this area. It argues
that reliance on generic training in special education or training for teachers
of children with other disabling conditions cannot be considered as a
substitute for such requisite specialised training:
...appropriately specialised professional training for teachers in
these fields is extremely resource intensive with appropriately low-level
demand. In order to sustain this provision and to ensure that such quality
programming is made available and accessible nationally, there is a need to
ensure adequate government support for training initiatives such as the one
undertaken by joint venture between the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind
Children and the University of Newcastle. This cooperation has produced
Renwick College, a centre for professional training and research in the
education of children with sensory disabilities.[40]
5.52
The number of specific university special
education programs in the area of sensory disability fell from seven in 1987 to
just three in 1997. A response in some other post-graduate special education
programs was to offer limited numbers of coursework units in sensory disability
within the context of a general special education degree program. National and
international experience, however, clearly indicates that the specialist skills
required to operate effectively as a teacher of the deaf or teacher of students
with vision impairments cannot be adequately covered in the context of a
generic special education program.[41]
Rural and regional shortages
5.53
The shortage of specialised education services
is particularly acute in non-metropolitan regions. A number of submissions to
this effect came from Victoria, which may reflect the higher level of
effectiveness of community organisations in that state. The committee considers
it unlikely that the regional shortage of specialists is more acute in Victoria
than elsewhere.
5.54
One particular case can be highlighted as
illustrating the problem of specialisation shortages away from metropolitan
areas. An interesting submission on behalf of the South West Hearing Support
Group describes the efforts of this organisation to influence the Victorian
government to maintain minimum services from a visiting teacher for the deaf to
schools in the Warrnambool–Portland region. It was pointed out that the region
supported four teachers of the deaf ten years ago, a figure reduced to one in
1999. Recently, the regional Department Education and Training (DET) office had
decided to reduce the level of services even further, but could find no
specialist willing to work an 11 month contract on a 0.8 workload. Parental
pressure on the Minister for Education and Training resulted in the
department’s decision being overturned.[42]
5.55
The committee makes no comment on the merits of
decisions made, but a question arises as to why the regional DET assumed that
it would be possible to find a specialist teacher prepared to work under the
conditions offered. It is likely that the DET office had to make hard decisions
about the allocation of scarce resources, especially under new budgeting
arrangements. A lesson to be learnt from this may be that non-metropolitan
regions require financial support from the centre in order to provide the
incentives needed to attract specialists.
5.56
What has been a problem in Warrnambool is also a
problem in Wodonga. One submission states that parents in rural areas are often
faced with untrained teaching staff, mostly making good attempts at learning
about deafness: ‘But no amount of kindness can substitute for the necessary
specialist language skills required to teach a deaf child to be literate in
English. Often the parents are the ones teaching the staff.’[43] The submission continues:
In country areas, schools advertise for staff and position
criteria are usually not met by applicants. Clearly there is a shortage of
trained Teachers of the Deaf (TOD) especially in rural areas. Visiting Teachers
(V.T.) are required to travel vast distances and expected to know all things
about all disabilities. In some cases, children whose first language is Auslan
receive visits from VT’s who possess minimal signing skills. If an
interpreter is deemed to be required, one may not be readily found. Moreover,
if an interpreter is found they are often untrained and unqualified. By this, I
mean that the ‘interpreter’ may or may not have had any formal training in
studying Auslan as a language nor have been formally accredited as an
interpreter. Often the interpreter/aid has some ‘basic skills’ in signing.
These signing skills may not even be in Auslan, but some other simple language
coding system such as Makaton.[44]
5.57
Wodonga parents need to travel to the Shepparton
deaf facility for specialist attention, a distance of around 200 kilometres. It
was pointed out to the committee that historical circumstances has lead to a
concentration of specialists and services for deaf people in the cities and
major regional centres. It is now unacceptable to parents to consider sending
their children to boarding schools for the deaf, as they did many years ago
and, indeed, these schools no longer exist. It is now expected that deaf
children will be educated locally: hence the demand for regional services.[45]
5.58
The committee views sympathetically the points
made by parents of children with disabilities living in areas outside
metropolitan regions, and again makes the point that if regional cities in such
relatively closely settled areas as Wodonga and Warrnambool suffer from such a
shortage of specialists, the situation in many other rural centres must be far
worse. The committee considers that MCEETYA should undertake a study of this
problem with a view to addressing an overall shortage of specialist educators.
Specialist services to remote areas
5.59
Provision of specialist services to children
with disabilities in remote communities poses additional challenges. Reports in
submissions concentrated on the provision of specialist services to indigenous
remote communities. As discussed briefly in Chapter 5, indigenous communities
are the recipients of targeted services in some states. These are subject to
the difficulties imposed by distance and isolation, multiplied by the
disproportionately high number of individuals affected, and then by cultural
difference.
5.60
The submission from the Northern Territory
government referred to a recent independent review, Learning Lessons, which
noted as a starting point that education provision to indigenous communities was
a major challenge, with 118 remote schools having 40.05 per cent of the
indigenous population enrolled.[46]
The delivery of equitable and appropriate services to the disabled in
indigenous communities raised the need for even more specialised teacher professional
development and specialist services. The high incidence of otitis media was a
key resource challenge, compounded by the expense of providing support to
remote locations and the irregularity of service provision.[47] A submission reporting the
provision of services, or lack of them, to Torres Strait Islanders also
mentioned the need to cater for disabilities arising from foetal alcohol
syndrome.[48]
5.61
A major issue for these communities is screening
for the identification of disability. The South Australian government noted its
submission that: ‘There is a difficulty in separating broad educational
disadvantage issues from cultural and disability specific issues’.[49] Mr Trent Wheeley, a Guidance
Officer with Education Queensland located at the Torres Strait, identified two
different components in this. On the one hand, under diagnosis was occurring
because:
The burden of proof for intellectual impairment is much greater
here due to the perceived inappropriateness of standardised tests of
intelligence for this community. This has resulted in a severe under-diagnosis
of disability (0.75% vs. 2.45% statewide).[50]
5.62
Meanwhile, there was under diagnosis resulting
from language difficulties, caused by continuing difficulties in addition to
those of remoteness, subsequent lack of educational opportunities, and
follow-up assessment:
ESL factors are a major issue especially in the identification
of students with Language difficulties. A lack of appropriate testing
instruments and of staff who are trained in analysing language usage has
resulted in no students across the district being identified as having
Speech/Language Disabilities. Remoteness is a large issue especially as
students with disabilities reach high school age. There are only two high
schools in the district and for students from the other 15 schools this means
they will have to board on the mainland or on Thursday Island. Unfortunately
there are no boarding facilities that cater for the special needs of students
with disabilities. This has caused some parents to refuse to send their
children to high school. Additional factors related to remoteness are the
excessive cost of flying special education teachers to the students they are
expected to be working with and the lack of medical services for the diagnosis
of disability. We’re yet to have a paediatrician visit this year.[51]
5.63
A basic problem is the shortage of people
appropriately qualified to carry out the testing. The Northern Territory
government submission, for example, noted that the ‘availability of personnel
in remote areas who are seen as culturally appropriate is minimal’.[52] One submission remarked that,
while there is a larger training budget for professional development for
indigenous teachers than for many counterparts in Queensland, it was likely
that training for specialist education would be ‘quite insignificant’.[53]
5.64
In this regard, the Northern Territory
government has implemented programs to boost training for specialist indigenous
and remote teachers, as an outcome of the Learning Lessons review.[54] The Committee considers that
if problems of identification and treatment of disabilities in remote
indigenous communities are to be addressed, similar programs should become a
focus for relevant state education departments.
Recommendation 13
The committee recommends that MCEETYA undertake a study to
identify deficiencies in service provision for students with disabilities in
rural, regional and remote areas, as part of a project aimed at addressing the
overall shortage of specialist educators.
Conclusions and recommendations
5.65
The committee acknowledges that it is likely
that the shortage of specialised teachers is partly due to the changing role of
specialists over the past ten years as special schools have closed in line with
a more inclusive approach to the teaching of students with disabilities.
Specialists are now far more likely to find themselves in an itinerant support
role. It has been claimed that the move to inclusive schooling has been
resisted by specialists. Many have been trained for classroom work and are said
to be less comfortable in the role of consultant.[55]
5.66
Pressure is also added to specialist teachers by
questions about how to place traditional concepts of special education in the
context of key competencies, a new focus on vocational relevance of the
curriculum and quality issues generally. The committee has received no advice
on how schools and employing authorities are responding to such tensions, or
whether post-graduate university courses training the diminishing number of specialists
are taking these trends into account.
Recommendation 14
The committee recommends to MCEETYA
that research be undertaken to evaluate the effects of changes in the role and
employment conditions of special education teachers, and to assess the adequacy
and appropriateness of current specialist consultation models.
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