Sunday 17 December 2023

All Means All is thrilled to welcome Dr Rhonda Galbally AC as Patron and Stephanie Gotlib as Executive Director – Government Relations and Advocacy. Following the Disability Royal Commission, NDIS Review and the Review to Form a Better and Fairer Education System we are at a unique moment in time to progress crucial reform and the realisation of quality and inclusive education for students with disability in Australia. It is long overdue that the right to an inclusive education was afforded to all.

Dr Rhonda Galbally AC is a deeply respected and lifelong champion of inclusion and the rights of people with disability.

Dr Rhonda Galbally AC is a former Commissioner of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People With Disability and a former member of the NDIA Board. She was also the Principal Member of NDIA’s Independent Advisory Council.

Dr Galbally has made significant contributions to Australian and international social development, particularly for people with disability. From 2008-2013, Dr Galbally was the Chair of the National People with Disabilities and Carer Council.

Dr Galbally founded the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) and the Australian International Health Institute, now the Nossal Institute. She was also the founding CEO of the Australian Commission for the Future and the Executive Director of the Myer Foundation and Sidney Myer Foundation, Chair of Philanthropy Australia, the Chair of the Royal Women’s Hospital, and the Independent Chair of the competition policy review of medicines, poisons and chemicals. She was the transitional CEO of the Australian National Preventive Health Agency.

Dr Galbally was awarded an Order of Australia in 1990 and the Centenary Medal in 2003, in recognition of her service to the community. In 2012, Dr Galbally was awarded the Prime Minister’s Outstanding Achievement Award in the National Disability Awards and in 2019 she was appointed a Companion (AC) of the Order of Australia.

“We are honoured to welcome Dr Rhonda Galbally as the Patron of All Means All. Her lifelong commitment to the rights of people with disability and access to inclusive education aligns strongly with our mission, and her support magnifies our ability to create the transformative change to which we have a shared commitment. We look forward to shaping a brighter future together for students with disability.” said Mr Andrew Wilson, Board Chair of All Means All.

Stephanie Gotlib is a recognised and influential leader in the not-for-profit and disability advocacy sector.

Stephanie Gotlib is a widely recognised and respected disability advocate and CEO in the not-for-profit sector with more than 25 years of experience. She is currently Asia Pacific Regional Representative for Inclusion International, of which All Means All is a member, and she is also on the Board of Rights and Inclusion Australia.

Stephanie was the Chief Executive Officer of Children and Young People with Disability Australia (CYDA) from 2009-2019.

During this time Stephanie was a relentless voice for progressing the right to education for children and young people with disability. She has also served on a broad range of Ministerial Advisory Committees and Expert Advisory Groups.

Stephanie is tasked with leading All Means All’s government stakeholder engagement and advocacy as its Executive Director – Government Relations and Advocacy, ensuring that All Means All continues its important systemic advocacy work and is well positioned to respond to the current reform program nationally in respect of education of students with disability.

“We are thrilled that Stephanie Gotlib will be joining our team at this important time for All Means All following the Disability Royal Commission. She brings invaluable experience and expertise and is a highly respected and effective leader in disability advocacy with a deep understanding of issues of fairness, equal opportunity, inclusion and participation in the community and ’best practice’ in disability rights-based advocacy and practice.” Mr Andrew Wilson, Board Chair of All Means All, said.

Click to access this Announcement in printable PDF.

On 1 July 2023 All Means All made a submission to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights Inquiry into Australia’s Human Rights Framework.

Our Submission considered primarily the importance of ensuring that Australia’s human rights framework is effective to adequately protect the fundamental human right to education through the enactment of a national Human Rights Act that includes a provision in relation to the right to education that expressly recognises and incorporates each of the following:

•  the right to education in its general application, as guaranteed by Article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights;

• the right to education as it applies to the situation of people with disability, being the right to inclusive education guaranteed by Article 24 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disability and explained by the Committee on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities in its 2016 General Comment No.4;

• the right to culturally and linguistically appropriate education for minority groups, which rights are recognised under a range of international human rights instruments such as the Declaration on the Rights of Persons belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; and

• intersectionality, being the experience by some Australians of multiple social categorisation or attributes, such as age, sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, intersex status and ethnic origin or race, that may lead to multi-layered and cumulative discrimination or disadvantage and materially impact on their human right to education.

You can read our Submission in full here. Please contact us if you require access to another format.

Image © Jon Tyson

ALT: A photograph of a wall and ceiling in a dark room. On the wall there is a neon sign with the single word “all”.

Overview

All Means All has considered the research report “Outcomes associated with ‘inclusive’, ‘segregated’ and ‘integrated’ settings for people with disability” published by the  Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation (Disability Royal Commission) and produced by researchers from the University of Melbourne (Outcomes Report) as it relates to education of students with disability.  In our view the Outcomes Report should not be relied upon to inform the development of policy in education of students with disability for the following reasons:

• substantive methodological and other flaws, including with its purported systematic review of research, that fundamentally undermine the reliability and relevance of its findings and recommendations;
• failure to consider the historical context and the use and impact on people with disability of segregation as a systemic practice; and
• ethical and human rights concerns, notably in relation to unaddressed bias and the failure to adopt a disability inclusive human rights-based approach to the production of disability research.

It is crucial to clarify from the outset that our intention is not to engage in criticism of anyone who is involved in the production of the Outcomes Report and we acknowledge their efforts. However, we feel compelled to bring attention to certain concerns we have identified and ensure that these concerns are understood, as we believe they may have adverse implications for students with disability and the realisation of their right to inclusive education.  By raising these concerns, we also aim to contribute to the overall betterment of research practices in the area of disability and the mitigation of potential harm to people with disability from research that is not aligned with their human rights.

Concerns about the Outcomes Report and its approach

In March 2023 the Disability Royal Commission published the Outcomes Report on its website, which had been commissioned and funded under the Disability Royal Commission’s research program titled ‘A Flourishing Future: The Disability Royal Commission Research Agenda.  Section 5 of the Outcomes Report is titled ‘Education’ and purports to provide a systematic review of research in education focussing on ‘severe’ disability (although it is unclear how this was operationalised) to inform the Disability Royal Commission’s inquiry and recommendations.

Following the publication of the Outcomes Report, All Means All requested Dr. Robert Jackson PhD to consider and provide advice about the approach and findings in the Outcomes Report in relation to the education of students with disability. The request was prompted by a range of concerns from All Means All’s stakeholders, including members of the SIPN and SINE Networks of families and inclusive educators, that involved, amongst others, concerns about the findings of the Outcomes Report appearing to be at odds with significant high-quality reviews of education research over many decades and with the way the research was scoped and framed. 

Dr. Jackson, an academic expert in the area of inclusive education and disability, has provided his advice to All Means All in a report that can be downloaded here. Dr. Jackson’s report identifies substantive methodological issues with the Outcomes Report that fundamentally undermine the reliability and relevance of its findings and recommendations.  For example, inappropriate search strategies for the ‘systematic review’ of research carried out by the authors appear to have resulted in the omission of a significant body of research including important high-quality reviews (e.g. the 2015 meta-analysis by Oh-Young and Filler) as well as the likelihood that data collected from some studies has been considered twice and may have distorted findings.

Dr. Jackson’s report further identifies significant problems with the framing of the research, which neglects to consider the practice of segregation and its impact on people with disability through either a historical or a human rights lens and therefore ‘de-centres’ their voices and their long struggle for equality and inclusion.

In our view and for the reasons set out in Dr Jackson’s report and in this statement, the Outcomes Report, in relation to education at least, should not be relied upon to inform the work of the Disability Royal Commission or the development of policy on the education of students with disability. 

More broadly, All Means All also urges researchers working in the area of disability and those who provide funding for the production of disability research, including in education, to adopt a disability inclusive human rights-based approach, as recommended by the international Disability Human Rights Research Network (DHRRN) in accordance with its Protocol for Rights-based Disability Research in all Fields and the CBM-Nossal Partnership for Disability-inclusive Development and Research for Development Impact Network in accordance with its Research for all: Making Development Research Inclusive of People with Disabilities.

The potential for disability research to cause harm

As Dr. Jackson notes in his report, few groups have experienced the extreme oppression at the hands of ‘experts’ that people with disability have experienced over history. In the context of academic research, it is important to acknowledge that some of the practices that persist in the academic world have not only permitted human rights violations, but have also enabled a veil of apparent academic credibility to be provided to perspectives and positions that are contrary to human rights.

In our view, academics who participate in research that is contrary to the rights of people with disability must be sensitive to being seen to be complicit in the violation of those rights.

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities (CRPD), which was negotiated with the substantive participation of people with disability and is considered to be the most authoritative global statement of their human rights, should underpin all research produced in relation to people with disability.

In the area of education, we are aware that knowledge and understanding of the CRPD and the rights and standards it embodies has been shown to be limited among academics and researchers, many of whom continue to produce research that is not disability inclusive or rights-based and which has the potential to significantly damage the future of inclusion for students with disability and the realisation of their right to education. We acknowledge however that an increasing number of academics and researchers in education are aligning their research with the CRPD and other relevant human rights instruments and we welcome this shift.

While the Outcomes Report utilises human rights terminology and references the CRPD it does not adopt a human rights-based approach.  As noted by the DHRRN in its Protocol, research that ‘conflicts with, undermines or contradicts the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, even if it is claimed to be ‘rights-based’ is not human rights-based research.

Not only are the approach and recommendations in the Outcomes Report not aligned with the requirements or the goals of the CRPD under Articles 5 and 24, in some instances the Outcomes Report appears to go so far as to criticise the CRPD and some of its cornerstone concepts as ‘simplistic’ (p.3) and to suggest it ‘contains an oversimplified dichotomy’ (p.91) that results in the characterisation of ‘segregation’ as a discriminatory practice that is incompatible with ‘inclusion’. At the same time, the Outcomes Report also seems to assert that the CRPD ‘does not appear to rule out separate settings when deemed appropriate’, despite acknowledging the clear position in General Comment No.4 in relation to segregation (see 5.2.1.3, p 89). Unfortunately, assertions of this nature are deeply misguided and fail to grasp that the status of segregation on the basis of disability as a human rights issue flows from the application of the standards of equality and non-discrimination in international human rights law to the situation of people with disability, which are embodied in Articles 5 and 24 of the CRPD. 

General Comment No.4 (Right to Inclusive Education) and General Comment No.6 (Equality and Non-Discrimination) provide guidance from the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities about the meaning of Articles 24 and 5 and the status of segregation in education as a form of discrimination that is not compatible with the human right to inclusive education. The issue was also examined at length in the comprehensive advice on Article 24 of the CRPD and General Comment No.4 prepared by international human rights law expert Professor Andrew Byrnes for the Disability Royal Commission and published on its website on 24 June 2022 and which is consistent with All Means All’s own submission to the Disability Royal Commission in respect of this matter, and the 2020 Position Paper ‘Segregation of People With Disability is Discrimination and Must End’ released by the peak national cross-disability representative organisations and endorsed by more than 50 non-government organisations. The status of segregation on the basis of disability, including in education, was also discussed by the two United Nations representatives who gave evidence to the Disability Royal Commission, the Special Rapporteurs on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, Catalina Devandas Aguilar and Professor Gerard Quinn. Both made it clear that segregation is at the core of the CRPD, which requires governments to shift their policies away from segregation in order to achieve inclusion.

Disability inclusive rights-based research adopts human rights as the starting point and its approach to research questions is underpinned by how human rights can be achieved.  In contrast to this, the Outcomes Report concerns itself with the respective merits of ‘segregation’ and ‘inclusion’ or ‘integration’ and asserts the ‘need to move beyond simplistic notions of physical location or dichotomies of inclusion vs segregation’ (p.3) and adopts instead ‘multi-dimensional typologies’ (a concept that appears to be a more contemporary expression of the pre-CRPD ‘continuum of supports’ concept) which, by implication, could include segregation on the basis of disability.  In doing this, the authors would seem to have positioned themselves, in spite of the applicable human rights norms, as arbiters of whether or not segregation is a legitimate practice for some people with disability, while failing to interrogate the practice of segregation in any meaningful way or to provide robust evidence in its favour. Indeed, as noted by Dr. Jackson, the starting point for the Outcomes Report appears to be the assumption that segregation is beneficial and that until a threshold for research evidence on outcomes for inclusion is met, segregation is justified. This in itself is highly problematic not only as an issue of research methodology and unaddressed bias, but also because it raises significant ethical concerns as an approach that seeks to make the realisation of the human rights of people with disability conditional on positive research outcomes.

We are disappointed that the Outcomes Report has been funded and published by the Disability Royal Commission, not only because of its significant flaws, but also because it represents a missed opportunity to fund and support disability inclusive rights-based research to actually improve outcomes for disabled people.  We do not see value in more research into the respective merits of education models that do not meet CRPD standards; the value is in research on how we can ensure that education systems are transformed to ensure those standards are met for all children and young people with disability in all schools, so that they too can realise their fundamental right to inclusive education. How do we ensure that inclusive social and academic supports are able to be delivered in every class?  How do we successfully transition out of the current predominant ‘integration’ and ‘segregation’ models that comprise our existing ‘dual path’ system, into a system where, as a baseline standard, every school is a universally accessible, quality and inclusive school?  How can we ensure that funding is allocated and used effectively to ensure an inclusive education system? How do we stamp out ableism and build inclusive school cultures that foster mutual respect and connection among diverse student populations? How do we promote among all stakeholders the understanding and recognition of the equal rights of students with disability to access education in regular classrooms?

The CRPD and General Comment No.4 make the goal of inclusion clear but disability inclusive rights-based research has a role to play in how we achieve that goal. The ACIE Roadmap is an attempt to identify the outcomes that need to occur to achieve that goal, stepped out over the next 10 years. The Outcomes Report not only fails to make a contribution that may be of value in working towards the goal of inclusive education, it has the flaws to undermine its achievement. 

We agree with Dr. Jackson’s conclusion that the Outcomes Report is deeply problematic.  If its findings and recommendations were to be relied upon, ‘it is difficult to see anything of significance changing for people with disability, who continue to experience poor rates of school completion, postschool study, and employment, as well as of poverty and community participation.’

For more information you can contact All Means All on: hello@allmeansall.org.au

You can also download a copy of this statement in printable PDF here and Dr Jackson’s report here.

www.allmeansall.org.au

Content warning: Sexual assault and harassment, ableism.

All Means All has joined the National Union of Students (NUS), the Australian Law Students’ Association (ALSA), the Australian Medical Students’ Association (AMSA), the Grace Tame Foundation and more than thirty bodies including its Co-Convenor on the ACIE Australian Coalition for Inclusive Education, Children and Young People People with Disability Australia (CYDA), as well as other ACIE member organisations such as Women With Disabilities Australia (WWDA) and other disability sector leaders such as People with Disability Australia (PWDA), National Ethnic Disability Alliance (NEDA) First Peoples Disability Network (FPDN) and the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations (AFDO), to demand the higher education sector to take strong measures to address discrimination experienced by people with disability in Australia.

The joint position statement and research report — titled ‘Disability & Higher Education in Australia’ — leverages case studies, stakeholder consultations, and interdisciplinary research to scrutinise and investigate the extent of structural ableism within Australia’s higher education sector and to highlight the urgency of the need for systemic reform: discrimination facing disabled staff and students are noted to be systemic, with only 17 per cent of disabled Australians attaining a Bachelor’s degree compared with 35 per cent of non-disabled Australians.

The joint position statement and research report also addresses the need to reform Australia’s broken anti-discrimination laws that are failing to ensure students with disability are able to access reasonable adjustments and reasonable accommodations and are enabling universities to avoid compliance with those laws with little to no consequences.

Other issues reported in the joint position statement and research report include rescheduling of classes on short notice, inaccessible classrooms and inconsistent policies on assistance animals — as well as heightened rates of sexual assault and harassment and vilification against disabled people on campuses.

“The National Student Safety Survey showed Disabled students were more than twice as likely to experience SASH on campus, consistent with the numbers seen through the Disability Royal Commission,” said NUS Disabilities Officer Georgie McDaid. “This is a duty of care problem, and it’s simply not good enough.”

Among calls to action in the report is a request that the Albanese Government should raise the level of financial support offered by AUSTUDY, ABSTUDY and the Disability Support Pension above the Henderson Poverty Line, as well as undertaking urgent reform of Australia’s anti-discrimination laws — especially the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Commonwealth).

The research report is also calling upon government bodies — such as the Australian Human Rights Commission — to conduct investigations into structural ableism and sexual assault and harassment on university campuses experienced by disabled students.

“Our higher education system is physically locking out students barring them from opportunities,” said NUS President Georgie Beatty.

Action is long overdue and the higher education sector must now listen, reflect and take action to ensure meaningful access to education and opportunity.

“The current legislation is negatively impacting student wellbeing,” said ALSA President Annabel Biscotto.

“Enough is enough. It is time that students with disabilities feel as comfortable and accommodated within the classroom as their neurotypical peers,” said ALSA Vice President (External) Theo Totsis. “Denying us such liberties causes us to spiral and suffocate. Even I, being in my 6th year and diagnosed with autism and ADHD 18 years ago, have still not been made to feel otherwise.”

Click here or the image below to download the Disability & Higher Education Report and Recommendations in Australia in PDF.

Click here to download in Word format.

Media enquiries:

Annabel Biscotto

Australian Law Students’ Association

+61 400 206 011 | president@alsa.asn.au | https://alsa.asn.au

Georgie Beatty

National Union of Students

+61 411 606 808 | president@nus.asn.au | https://nus.asn.au

Driving change: A roadmap for achieving inclusive education in Australia