A specialised group of teachers who visit schools in Victoria to work with vision- and hearing-impaired students could be fully absorbed into the teaching workforce, ending a decades-long service that provides disabled students with one-on-one support in state schools.
The 32 teachers were given a reprieve last week after the Education Department cut 85 other positions in an overhaul of its visiting teacher service. Under the change, “inclusion outreach coaches” will support schools working with students with additional needs, but teachers’ classroom sessions will be scaled back.
Victorian Government Education Minister Natalie Hutchins said the vision and hearing roles “may be absorbed into teacher roles down the track” as the government’s $1.6 billion inclusion program was rolled out.
Parents say they have been blindsided by the proposal to cut the visiting teachers service, which will significantly reduce the number of specialised teachers who assist students with vision and hearing impairments, autism and other disabilities in the state’s public schools.
Emily Shepard, whose son Louis has both vision and hearing impairment, said there had been no consultation by the department. She heard the news via email from a colleague.
“I was just completely deflated and shocked and just quite distressed,” she said. “How can this be happening? How come we haven’t heard about it? How come there’s no consultation?
“I can’t see any evidence that there is any thought process that has the best interest of the kids at the heart of it. This looks like a short-term budget fix with no thought about the repercussions long-term for some of the most vulnerable kids in the school system.”
Thirteen-year-old Louis has Usher syndrome, a rare degenerative condition that affects both sight and hearing. He has two specialist teachers who regularly visit his Mordialloc school.
Emily Shepard said her only option if her son lost visiting teacher support was to use NDIS funding to hire private therapists to do site visits to the school – at four times the cost.
“It’s just moving the burden from one system to another,” she said.
“You remove those supports and the whole thing comes crashing down. The schools don’t have the capacity or the expertise or the versatility to understand the unique needs of children with either deafness or vision loss or a combination of both.”
Shepard, who heads an Usher syndrome support group, said she had called the department for answers, but was given no reassurance that children affected by the changes would be looked after.
“To take funding away from such a vulnerable group of children who are already struggling in a number of different categories, it’s just heartbreaking and it just screams inequality to me,” she said.
National Association of the Australian Teachers of the Deaf chairperson Kaye Scott said the cuts would inevitably affect frontline services. In one of the visiting teacher service’s four regions, nearly 1,000 students at more than 300 schools received regular support from a visiting teacher, she said.
Kaye Scott said it would be “impossible” to maintain the current level of support with 32 staff statewide.
“It’s because of the supports they receive in primary school and secondary school that vulnerable students are able to keep in the ballpark with their peers and if they miss that support, we know that they fall behind and the gap gets bigger,” she said.
Scott said Victoria already offered significantly less classroom support than other states.
“And that’s before the cuts,” she said.
A spokesperson for Victorian Department of Education was unapologetic, saying the government (Ed. They really meant to say the taxpayer) had already invested $1.6 billion in disability inclusion since the visiting teacher service was implemented in the 1970s.
National Association for Australian Teachers of the Deaf and South Pacific Educators in Vision Impairment have together demanded the Victorian Government ensure that these students have continuing and uninterrupted access to an equitable, high-quality education supported by qualified specialist teachers. They say this will only be achieved by the immediate reversal of the decision to slash staff.
By Robyn Grace for The Sydney Morning Herald and other editorial sources. Photo: Emily Shepard and her 13-year-old son Louis. Credit: Chris Hopkins.