The final report of the Disability Royal Commission was made public on Friday amongst the hundreds of recommendations made is ending segregation in settings like group homes, employment and schools. Alastair McEwin was one of the six commissioners for the inquiry and he and two of his fellow commissioners have recommended that no student should remain in a special school by 2051.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00 Alistair McEwen, thank you for joining me.
00:05 Explain to our audience how you and I are communicating today.
00:09 Thank you, Naz, for having me.
00:10 I'm profoundly deaf.
00:11 I was born deaf, and I communicate both by speaking spoken English and in Australian
00:18 sign language.
00:19 And today I'm speaking to you using spoken English.
00:23 We did try our very best to find an interpreter, an Auslan interpreter.
00:28 However, we were unable to do so.
00:31 So I'm lip-reading you today.
00:33 There was a very significant recommendation about phasing out segregated education by
00:39 2051.
00:41 Why was that important?
00:43 For myself and Commissioners Galbally and Bennett, we listened carefully and we researched
00:50 carefully.
00:51 And we also heard through many private sessions that for disabled students and their families,
00:58 all they wanted was to be able to go to the local primary school.
01:02 I had parents tell me repeatedly of all the effort that they tried to work with their
01:07 local primary school to include their child with a disability in that school.
01:12 For us, our recommendation is important because we know that not only did change not only
01:17 happen overnight, we also know many things need to change from the education system itself,
01:24 with policy, teacher training, but also making sure that the students themselves have the
01:30 access and support ready in mainstream school to be able to participate fully.
01:35 The ABC has received calls and emails from concerned parents worried about the recommendation
01:42 around the closure of special schools.
01:46 They are worried that their children won't be supported.
01:49 Do you understand their concerns?
01:51 I hear that.
01:52 And I saw that.
01:53 And what I heard again and again, no parent said to me, I want my child to go to a special
02:00 school.
02:01 It was often a choice that they had to make after no other option.
02:07 Now we are certainly not recommending the closure of special schools tomorrow, but our
02:13 timeline clearly makes it important that we have to close special schools eventually because
02:21 for as long as you have a dual system, there will be no incentive by the mainstream schools
02:28 to improve or make their schools more accessible.
02:31 Some families would say their children are happy being at a special school.
02:36 What would you say to them?
02:37 I say, and this is what we heard again and again, it's not a choice.
02:42 They were forced into special schools.
02:45 We need to stop the othering of disabled students and disabled children.
02:51 We need to stop assuming that they can't thrive and flourish like any other child.
02:57 There was division among the commissioners around segregated settings, including in employment,
03:04 education and group homes.
03:06 What do you make of that division?
03:09 For me, it's important to remember that this is always going to be a conversation that
03:13 we need to have with the wider community.
03:16 And with the assistant commissioner coming from very different backgrounds, what was
03:20 important for me and Commissioner Rhonda Galbally was that our lived experience we felt was
03:27 really important to provide input to that conversation.
03:32 And while as you've now seen in the report, there were still differences of opinions about
03:36 where disabled kids can learn.
03:39 For me, Rhonda Galbally and Barbara Bennett, we looked thoroughly at the evidence and there
03:45 was a lot of information also that showed that learning outcome for disabled children
03:52 is better when they are with their non-disabled peers.
03:55 If you go to a special school, you are more likely to then go into a sheltered workshop
04:00 or an ADE, we now call them, a group home.
04:04 In other words, you're almost condemned to a lifetime of segregation and hidden away
04:09 from society.
04:11 For as long as we other disabled people, for as long as we shut them behind walls, out
04:17 of sight, out of mind, for as long as we continue to do that, we will never have inclusion.
04:23 [BLANK_AUDIO]