NDIA Accountability Project

Submission 124 — Australian Coalition for Inclusive Education — Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability

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australian coalition for inclusive education

Date: 11 March 2022

The Hon. Ron Sackville AO QC and Commissioners

Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation

of People with Disability

GPO Box 1422 Brisbane

Queensland 4001

Dear Commissioner Sackville and fellow Commissioners,

Time to move on ensuring inclusive education in Australia

Following our 10 November letter and submission titled ’Reporl Card: the ACIE

Roadmap and the Disability Royal Commission', we would  like to bring  to your

attention to the recent ‘Call to Action: Recommendations from the Global Disability Summit Thematic Workshop on Inclusive Education’, dated 31 January 2022. (refer Appendix 1)

The  Australian  Coalition  for  Inclusive  Education  (ACIE)  strongly endorses  the

recommendations made  in the Call  to Action, which  point to responsibilities and

actions that are needed to implement CRPD Article 24 and achieve SDG4 for, by, and with students with disability, realising the right to education for all.

The Call to Action further highlights our concerns about Australia’s progress towards ensuring an inclusive education for each and every student with disability. ACIE continue to be concerned that the Disability Royal Commission risks wasting the once­ in-a-lifetime opportunity presented by this inquiry that was hard-fought by people with disability for many years, to make strong and immediate recommendations in line with

human rights norms and  its terms of reference,  to ensure progress  in this  critical

priority area for Australians with disability.

Also as previously submitted, our resource titled, Driving Change: A roadmap for achieving inclusive education in Australia provides a framework for realising inclusive education in line with the Call to Action.

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We commend this Call to Action to the Commission.

A delegation of ACIE members, including young people with disability, would welcome a meeting with you to discuss the ACIE Report Card and the Roadmap in greater detail, and to consider how we can support the Disability Royal Commission to consider issues related to the implementation of genuinely inclusive education, including the need to phase out practices that segregate and exclude people with disability.

Please do not hesitate to contact me as Chair and Co-Convenor of the Australian Coalition for Inclusive Education on 03 9417 025 or at marysayers@cyda.org.au, or our fellow Co-Convenor Catia Malaquias of All Means All at hello@allmeansall.org.au, to discuss this and our 10 November 2021 submission in more detail.

Yours sincerely

Mary Sayers

Chief Executive Officer, CYDA

Chair, Australian Coalition for Inclusive Education

This letter was endorsed by the Australian Coalition for Inclusive Education

Children and Young People

with Disability Australia

A

The Australian Coalition for Inclusive Education would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which this report has been written, reviewed and produced, whose cultures and customs have nurtured and continue to nurture this land since the

Dreamtime. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and future. This is, was, and

always will be Aboriginal land.

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Appendix 1

Call to Action: Recommendations from the

Global Disability Summit (GDS22) Thematic Workshop on Inclusive Education

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re Inclusive Education Thematic Workshop Co-Sponsors

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This document represents the outcome of the “Global Disability Summit: Inclusive Education Thematic Workshop” held on 20“ January 2022, to promote disability-inclusive education as a high priority for stakeholders making commitments ahead of the 2022 Global Disability Summit.* When learners with disabilities are fully included and can access opportunities to reach their full potential, everyone benefits. To realize this vision, States, donors, development and humanitarian actors should engage with organisations of persons with disabilities to enhance disability inclusion in legislative and institutional frameworks, programming and service delivery. Based on the Menu of Commitments developed by the GDS22 organisers, these recommendations point to responsibilities and actions that are needed in these areas to implement CRPD Article 24 and achieve SDG4 for, by, and with learners with disabilities, realising the right to education for all.

The Global Disability Summit highlights the following as key areas requiring action by all actors in 2022:

INCLUSIVE EDUCATION COMMITMENTS

  1. Strengthen education systems so that they are inclusive of all, including those that face highest risks of marginalisation such as learners with disabilities.

  2. Recognize that progress in inclusive education depends upon foundations of progress in inclusive nurturing care and inclusive early childhood development; begin at the beginning, learning begins in infancy, expands in early childhood, and continues in pre-primary, primary, secondary systems and beyond.

  3. Build capacity on inclusive education in the education workforce, including Ministries of Education.

  4. Strengthen targeted support for learners with disabilities, including provision of social protection in particular towards disability specific costs that impact access to education.

  5. Promote social inclusion at community level. Support inclusive community services for all children, together with individually tailored services for children with disabilities. Inclusive education is the

’ The International Disability Alliance (IDA), the Government of Norway, and the Government of Ghana will (virtually) host the second Global Disability Summit on 16 and 17 February 2022 (GDS22). Link: https://www.globaldisabilitysummit.org

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only way to achieve SDG 4 for all children, including children with disabilities. There should be one system of education and all children, including those with disabilities, must be guaranteed access. Any segregated or special settings that are not in line with the CRPD must be phased out. Failure to include children with disabilities in inclusive school settings in their community undermines community inclusion and leads to increased pressure to place children in special boarding schools or other forms of institutional care.

  1. Ensure inclusive education in situations of crisis, emergency, and conflict.

  2. Promote inclusion of persons with disabilities in vocational training and higher education and facilitate access to opportunities for decent work.

  3. Design and implement cross-sectoral strategies to provide comprehensive support to all learners. 9. Increase information and knowledge on inclusive education for policy-making and targeted

interventions, including through collection and publication of disaggregated education data.

  1. Increase sustainable long-term funding for inclusive education.
  2. Strengthen tracking of disability inclusion in expenditure.

OVERARCHING COMMITMENTS

  1. Reduce discrimination and stigmatisation by promoting attitudinal change in communities and across all development cooperation, including, addressing intersectionalities.

  2. Disaggregate data by disability, gender and age in data collection and statistics. 3. Commit to tracking expenditure and efforts for inclusion in national accounting and

development cooperation.

4.  Increase  consultation  and  meaningful  participation  of  persons  with  disabilities  and

organisations of persons with  disabilities  in the design, implementation, monitoring and

evaluation of national policies and systems, and in international cooperation.

  1. Support efforts to align existing legislation with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), using the participatory approach of law reforms as required by the CRPD.

  2. Promote accessible information and access to democratic processes and elections, and promote inclusion and diversity in political representation.

  3. Achieving a fully inclusive education system for all learners including learners with disabilities requires a “twin-track” approach - a transformation across the whole education system to

    ensure learners with disabilities are fully welcomed and included, whilst also ensuring

targeted investments to support the unique needs of learners with disabilities.

  1. Promote Do No Harm codes of ethical conduct to protect all children and youth, especially from practises that are emotionally, physically damaging, and/or disrespectful.

Assistive Technology

  1. Support, develop and implement programmes on assistive technology to make them easily available.

Community Inclusion

  1. Develop cross sectoral policies and design action plans in partnership with the full range of stakeholders and communities to facilitate the meaningful inclusion of all children and adults with disabilities, with a special focus on gender equality.

    1. Invest in accessible and disability inclusive needs assessment, information management

    systems, and outreach mechanisms that facilitate coordinated support for community

inclusion.

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  1. Invest in transforming, developing, or scaling up person-centric and gender responsive community support and care systems that foster choice and autonomy for the diversity of persons with disabilities across the life cycle.

  2. Mobilise resources to ensure that public services are inclusive by actively working towards with the aim of removing physical, institutional, and attitudinal barriers.

  3. Pursue a progressive shift from segregated institutions towards harmonised and community­ based support.

  4. Support multi-stakeholder coordination and efforts to strengthen the knowledge-base on achieving community-based support in different contexts.

The co-hosts of the Global Disability Summit Inclusive Education Thematic Workshop strongly urge all stakeholders to make concrete commitments in these areas to accelerate progress towards achieving quality education for all learners with disabilities and ensuring the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 4 and Article 24 of the CRPD.

Thank you to the global partners and co-sponsors who made the Global Disability Summited Inclusive Education Thematic Workshop possible, including:

  • Association d’Aide a!’Education de l’Enfant Handicape (AAEEH)
  • Catholic Relief Services (CRS)
  • CBM
  • Civil Society Action Coalition on Education for All (CSACEFA)
  • Disability Rights Fund & Disability Rights Advocacy Fund
  • Disability Rights International
  • Education Cannot Wait
  • Education for All Coalition
  • Ghana Federation of Disability Organisations (GFD)
  • Global Campaign for Education
  • Global Campaign for Education-US
  • Global Disability Summit
  • Global Education Monitoring Report
  • Humanity & Inclusion
  • Inclusion International
  • International Disability Alliance
  • International Disability and Development Consortium (IDDC)
  • Keystone Human Services International
  • Light for the World
  • Leonard Cheshire
  • Norwegian Association of the Blind and Partially Sighted (NABP)
  • Partnership for Early Childhood Development & Disability Rights (PECDDR)
  • PDRC International
  • Salzburg Global Seminar
  • Save the Children
  • The Action Foundation
  • The World Bank
  • UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning
  • UNICEF
  • USAID
  • World Vision Page 15