Disability lobby groups are calling on the state government to alter its funding model for students with a disability.
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Following the passage of the federal government’s Gonski 2.0 school funding legislation through the Senate this week, the Tasmanian Disability Education Reform Lobby has called for a shift away from the IQ-based funding model for students with a disability.
Education Minister Jeremy Rockliff said that the state government determined the distribution of all funding, and would not be reducing funding for students with a disability.
“It’s time for the Tasmanian Government to implement a truly needs based funding model and to scrap the outdated inequitable IQ based system,” lobby founder Kristen Desmond said.
She said the the system was “inequitable and inadequate” and the lobby group is seeking further detail on the additional $5 billion in funding negotiated by crossbenchers and The Greens, including Senator Jacqui Lambie, and how transitional funding for students with disability would be handled.
Senator Lambie said she had secured an additional $20 million for Tasmanian schools to manage the cost of transitioning to Gonski 2.0 and to support disability funding.
The lobby group cited information submitted to Senate Estimates that revealed an $8 million drop in funding for students with a disability from 2017 to 2018, based on the 2016 Nationally Consistent Collection of Data, with only relatively small increases in funding from 2021 onward.
“The Hodgman Liberal Government will continue to place a priority focus on funding for students with disability as reflected by the $3 million annual allocation from the Ministerial Taskforce on Support for Students with Disability,” Mr Rockliff said.
“There is also $6 million more for students with disability in this year’s State Budget than there was last year, which is in fact $16 million more than was provided under Labor and the Greens.”