Report calls for all Victorian children to go to mainstream schools, regardless of disabilities

Segregating children with disabilities in special schools has been compared to the Nazi practice of eugenics, leading to a call for all kids to be educated together.

All children benefit from being educated under one system, research has found.

Special schools should be scrapped and all students educated under one system to eliminate discriminative assessments and practices for students with disabilities, new research says.

A study by Monash University has found that policies and funding brought in under Victoria’s education system, which has both mainstream and special schools, have historically been driven by the goal of eliminating “unwanted traits from the human race” – a concept known as ‘eugenics’.

Monash University senior inclusion and disability lecturer Kate de Bruin said eugenic ideas, which underpinned regimes such as Nazi Germany, still existed in the education system today.

Assessments such as IQ tests used to place students in special schools – if they report an IQ lower than 70 – rather than mainstream classrooms left students with disabilities worse off in the long run, she said.

Geelong mother Raelene McDonald enrolled her now Year 11 son Felix, who has autism and an intellectual disability, at St Joseph’s College, the same school as his older brother Oscar.

She said having neurotypical kids around Felix allowed him to improve socially and academically.

“It has been amazing having that normality around Felix. He has just completed a certificate in food preparation and he will go into Year 12 next year,” she said.

“We were worried that he would not progress this much in a special school.”

Dr de Bruin said special schools were based on premise children with disabilities needed to separated from others for safety reasons.

“Critical influences on policy end up having a cyclic effect … and in Victoria it co-occurred with the rise of eugenics,” she said.

A study by Monash University has found that policies and funding brought in under Victoria’s education system for special schools is discriminatory.

“That was justified on the basis that they (people with different abilities) were a danger to society but the safety is now positioned as if it’s safer for those kids with disabilities to be separated, so while moral views of this policy have changed, it hasn’t actually changed all that much. It still argues that kids with disabilities should be separated.”

The Monash study analysed key policy reforms in Victoria and Australia that have been introduced since public education was established in Victoria in 1872, including the 1890 Victorian Education Act which first used the term ‘special school’, and when the Schools Commission was created under the Whitlam government in the 1970s.

It showed that these, along with the 2005 Disability Standards for Education (DSE) mean that “the rise of eugenics contributed to the development and expansion of segregated schools in Australia”.

The report said: “The rise of eugenics contributed to the development and expansion of segregated schools in Australia and continues to exert influence on modern policy reform”.

Eugenic theories were based on ideals such as planned breeding and racial improvement and gained traction from the 1900s, even being spruiked by the Australian Medical Association at the time.

The idea drove horrific discrimination laws and medical experiments that were carried out on people with disabilities under the Nazi regimen.

Dr de Bruin said integrating Victoria’s school system would require more on the job training for all school staff to support all students.

“The planned closure of special schools does not mean dumping kids with disabilities into mainstream classrooms without support,” she said.

“What it means is ensuring that the support kids need can be brought to them within their local neighbourhood schools rather than requiring them to be transported away from their friends and siblings and segregated alongside other students with disability.”

Educating all children with disabilities in mainstream schools would mean teachers needed more classroom support.

About 17,000 students were enrolled in public, Catholic and independent special schools this year.

The Herald Sun revealed in July that one in 10 Victorian public and Catholic school students is now registered with intellectual or social disability.

The Australia Institute of Health and Wellness estimates that 10 per cent of students in Australia have a disability.

Chief executive of Children and Young People with Disability Australia Skye Kakoschke-Moore said a transition to more inclusive schooling would provide better academic and life outcomes for all students.

“Often, we hear that many children are supposedly too complex or “too disabled” to attend their local school,” she said.

“If your local school is not prepared or equipped to provide and support your child to learn with their same-age peers successfully and safely, then going to a special school is not a choice. It’s a compromise or coercion.”

Education Minister Natalie Hutchins said the Andrews government would continue providing both inclusive mainstream schools and special schools if returned to power.

“A re-elected Labor government will transform specialist schools, and the lives of their students, carers and families, with outside hours care to every single specialist school in the state, more therapy animals and scholarships to make sure there are health specialists available for every child at every specialist school,” she said.

“This is about giving families the choice they deserve to get the education that suits their child.”