Lines blurred on aid to disabled students

Teacher aides should no longer be required to assist children with disabilities go to the toilet or perform medical procedures.

High angle view of disable schoolgirl with classmates studying and sitting at desk in classroom of elementary school

Teacher aides should no longer be required to assist children with disabilities go to the toilet or perform medical procedures such as catheterisation and tube feeding at the same time as helping deliver their education, the disabil­ity royal commission has heard.

Bowen State High School principal Pamela Prichard told the commission on Wednesday that rather than receiving funding for a teacher aide, she would prefer to employ a second teacher in each classroom to help support students with disabilities and for a medical practitioner to be available at all times at the school to handle medical issues.

“The lines are blurred. We have a teacher aide that would be performing those medical pro­cedures like toileting and catheterisation and then … they go back into the classroom and they’re working with that student on the curriculum or learning ­activity,” Ms Prichard said.

“Someone that’s supporting you with curriculum requirements preferably should not be the person that is toileting you.

“Medical procedures like catheterisation, PEG feeding (a feeding tube directly into the stomach through the abdomen), tubing and so forth, in my view that should not be part of (a teacher aide) role. That should be performed by a medical practitioner attached to the school.

“I don’t want any more money for teacher aides. If you could convert my teacher aide allo­cations into more teachers, I would be very pleased about that.

“Why shouldn’t our school’s students with a disability be en­titled to a teacher rather than a teacher aide.”

On its third day of hearings in Townsville, the commission into violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of people with disabil­ity continued its exploration of education, hearing testimony that supported inclusive schooling of children with disabilities in mainstream schools rather than the use of special schools.

The commission chose Townsville for its first public hearings because Queensland last year adopted an “inclusive schools” policy aimed at ensuring children with diverse needs, including those with a disability, were educated in mainstream schools. Three specialist disability education experts told the commission a child with any level of disability was capable of being taught in mainstream schools but some Queensland teachers were “resisting diversity” in classrooms.

Counsel assisting the commission, Kerri Mellifont QC, asked the panel, all from north Queensland schools, if there was “any circumstance in which a child might not be able to be accommodated in the mainstream?”

“We have a range of students with very complex needs at our school that we cater for so I can’t say any of those students are not able to achieve their education in our school,” said Catherine Morris, head of special education at Bowen State High School.

Loren Swancutt, head of inclusive schooling at Thuringowa State High School, agreed: “It’s certainly within our capacity to … provide for every child.”