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Disability Royal Commission Submission
Disabilities Department, University of Melbourne Student Union
There are significant problems with respect of Australian higher education policy and disability. Students with disability report that they receive insufficient support to access and participate at university, and a 2015 report to improve this situation has yet to obtain a response from the federal government. Both a recently-implemented and a proposed higher education funding scheme exclude students with disabilities from their equity metrics, with the latter of these containing additionally disturbing changes in terms of students’ subject failure. These funding arrangements are particularly troubling given the university sector’s current fiscal challenges. While doubtless unintended, in practice these policies constitute systemic neglect of Australians with disabilities.
This submission highlights: students with disabilities’ educational disadvantage; current inadequacies in terms of access and participation for students with disabilities; and similarities between our present university disabilities environment and findings from KPMG’s 2015 report. It also raises concerns that new and proposed higher education funding schemes will exacerbate students with disabilities’ educational disadvantage as they omit students with disabilities from their equity cohorts, and draws attention to alarming mooted changes to student subject failures. We conclude with a set of recommendations.
Higher educational disadvantage
Australians with disabilities attain lower levels of education across almost all sectors of the education system compared to their able-bodied peers, encountering numerous barriers to access and inclusion. Only 15% of people with Australians with disability aged 20 and over have a bachelor degree or higher, whereas 31% of people unaffected by disability report having attained this level of education. For people with severe or profound limitations, the figure is markedly lower (AIHW, 2019a). As of 2015, 6.2% of domestic undergraduate students reported having a disability (Farnhill & Thomas, 2017, p.4), which was noticeably lower than the general population reference value of 8% (DIISRTE, 2011). They nonetheless have good degree completion rates that are only slightly lower that the general student body (Kilpatrick et al, 2016, 24-5).
In recognition of this disadvantage, the Disability Standards for Education 2005 (which falls under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992) seeks to ensure that students with disability can access and participate in education on the same basis as other students. Within higher education, it is universities’ legal responsibility to facilitate this access and participation (Ruddock, 2005).
Insufficient disability support at Australian universities
Unfortunately, the current resources devoted to students with disabilities’ education access and facilitation needs are inadequate and we do not believe that they sufficiently meet the aims of Disability Standards for Education 2005. At the University students with disabilities report waiting several weeks to receive assistance. There is also a lack of customised programs for students with disability such as in vital areas such as careers advice; a widely fluctuating awareness amongst staff of the impact of less visible disabilities; and a lack of images of disability in the University’s marketing materials
Some of the concerns that we have with respect of support services are echoed in the 2014-2015 evaluation by KPMG of the Higher Education Disability Support Program, a report that was released
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over 5 years ago but that has yet to receive a response from the government. The KPMG report noted that “students in many institutions felt that disability staff were overworked and inaccessible due to their workload. Students described difficulties getting appointments to see disability support staff” (KPMG 2015, p.29). Only 55% of students surveyed by KPMG thought that higher education ‘mostly’ or ‘completely’ assisted students to overcome barriers to receiving a university education, although two-thirds of students ‘agreed’ or ‘strongly agreed’ that their university was providing them with the educational support and/or equipment needed with their studies (KPMG 2015, p.25). It also observed that there was also a lack of programs to improve staff disability confidence, awareness-raising, or to attract and retain students with disabilities.
The federal government generally provides about 50%-60% of the costs for universities in removing barriers to access and participation via the Higher Education Disability Support Program (KPMG, 2015, p.7). The current funding for the Higher Education Disability Support Program is approximately $7.8 million indexed to CPI (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020a).
Students with disabilities omission from new and proposed funding schemes
We also have considerable concerns with respect of new and proposed funding schemes, as they exclude students with disabilities from their equity cohorts. The Performance-Based Funding for the Commonwealth Grant Scheme (DESE, 2019) that commenced this year links enrolments of groups that have experienced long-standing educational disadvantage to universities’ funding. It defines its disadvantaged student cohort as being rural and remote students, indigenous students, and low socio-economic status students, but not students with disabilities.
The Performance-Based Funding for the Commonwealth Grant Scheme (PBF) incentivises universities to focus their enrolments and resources on disadvantaged students that will increase their funding. We are concerned that this will result in fewer resources for other disadvantaged students. The equity group component of the PBF is 20% of its funds. In 2020, this is about $16 million. This figure will cumulatively grow by around an additional $16 million annually (ie $32 million in total in 2021, $48 million in 2022 and so forth). Other disadvantaged groups also receive targeted funds such as the Indigenous Support Program and the Higher Education Participation and Partnership Program. Over the four years from 2020-21, the Commonwealth Government will invest over $400 million to halve the gap in rural, remote and regional communities higher education participation rates. This is in addition to the over $600 million it has committed to support regional higher education since 2016 (DESE, 2020, p.29).
The proposed Job-ready Graduates Package contains a similar omission (DESE, 2020). It defines its equity group participation metric as consisting of rural and remote students, indigenous students, and low socio-economic status students, but not students with disabilities. Interestingly, a key recommendation of the government’s own policy advice for the Job-ready Graduates Package, the Napthine Review (Commonwealth of Australia, 2019), advocates for improving the compounding disadvantage for students who are both from non-metropolitan areas and who experience additional disadvantage disabilities. Action 28 of the Napthine Review’s lists a goal of its strategy as being to “[e]nsure the specific support needs of equity groups, such as students with disability, are taken into account as part of any wider initiatives to improve the quality, availability and range of support provided by tertiary institutions” (Commonwealth of Australia, 2019, p.52). Unfortunately, no concrete measures were suggested in the Napthine Review, and the Job-ready Graduates Package in turn includes no customised policies to aid Australians with disabilities.
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Job-ready Graduates Package and student failure
Another problematic aspect of the proposed Job-ready Graduates Package relates to its funding for students who fail subjects. The Job-ready Graduates Package proposes that students who fail over half of their first eight subjects should be cut off from further Commonwealth Government funding (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020b). The Australian National University’s submission regarding this funding proposal notes that, in their experience, high failure rates in the first year of university are associated with sudden onset of a mental health condition (Schmidt, 2020). Adapting to a mental health condition is challenging for anybody, particularly a young person. That significant personal difficulties such as these would then render some otherwise capable students ineligible for further university study is tragic.
Recommendations
We make the following recommendations to the Disability Royal Commission:
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That the Commonwealth Government respond to and execute the findings from the 2014-15 KPMG evaluation of the Higher Education Disability Support Program.
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The Commonwealth Government give a significant boost to the Higher Education Disability Support Program’s funding and that this is linked to student enrolments not CPI to maintain its financial vigour over time.
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That the Performance-Based Funding for the Commonwealth Grant Scheme and the Job-ready Graduates Package are amended to include students with disabilities as part of their equity group participation metrics.
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That the intersectional educational disadvantage of being both a student with disability and from a rural, remote or regional area receive further consultation; and that this consultation is implemented in order to ameliorate the compounding disadvantage for rural, remote and regional students with disabilities.
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That subsequent university funding linked to the participation of multiple equity groups automatically includes students with disabilities.
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That the requirement that students who fail half of their first eight university subjects are rendered ineligible for further Commonwealth Government funding is removed from the Job-ready Graduates Package.
We believe it is vital that these recommendations are implemented. Australians with disabilities experience disadvantage across an array of social indicators throughout their lives, from high rates of poverty and homelessness, to unemployment and abuse. While education is not a silver bullet that nullifies this disadvantage, it nevertheless improves people’s life prospects which in turn benefits both individual Australians with disabilities and the Australian nation as a whole.
Thank you for taking the time to consider our submission.
Emma Townsend (September 2020)
on behalf of the Disabilities Department, UMSU, University of Melbourne.
Permission to make this submission and for its potential publication were granted by Srishti Chatterjee, Disabilities Office Bearer, UMSU.
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References:
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2019a), People with Disability in Australia: Web Report, https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/disability/people-with-disability-in-australia/education-and skills/educational-attainment/highest-level-of-education accessed 14 September 2020.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2019b), People with disability in Australia: Web Report, https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/dis/73-1/people-with-disability-in-australia/employment/labour force-participation accessed 14 September 2020.
Commonwealth of Australia (2019). National Regional, Rural and Remote Tertiary Education
Strategy - Final Report,
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Commonwealth of Australia (2020a). Higher Education Support Act 2003: Other Grants Guidelines
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Kilpatrick, Set al (2016). Exploring the Retention and Success of Students with Disability https://www.ncsehe.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Exploring-the-Retention-and-Success-of Students-with-Disability.pdf accessed 14 September 2020.
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Report
https://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/dsp evaluation report final june 2015.pdf
accessed 14 September 2014.
Ruddock, Phillip (2005), Disability Standards for Education 2005, https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2005L00767 accessed 14 September 2020.
Schmidt, Brian P, The Australian National University, Higher Education Support Amendment(Job
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