A key barrier to providing appropriate, high quality and individualised support to students with disability at primary, secondary and tertiary levels is the lack of trained teachers. Issues include:
there is minimal disability awareness skills training resulting in an inadequate knowledge of diverse functional needs.496 Teaching degrees give insufficient attention to effective strategies for inclusive education with units offered as an elective in some universities. A survey of 2,000 teachers conducted in 2008–2009497 found 70 percent felt inadequately trained to teach students with disability;
education professionals are not trained in using appropriate augmentative and alternative modes, means and formats of communication, educational techniques and materials to support students with disability;498
education professionals are not always aware of the specialist support services that exist to assist students in accessing the services they require, as mandated by the Education Standards;499
the numbers of teachers and support staff trained in Auslan remains inadequate,500 with some students provided with a teacher’s aide trained in Auslan for only a few hours per week.501 In 2006 there were only 860 specialist teachers to assist 16,000 hearing impaired students;
teacher’s aides qualified in Braille are often employed in casual positions and are limited in availability; and
many teachers have out-dated knowledge in relation to best practice in inclusive education and teacher’s aides are often relied upon to teach students with disability regardless of whether they have relevant training and qualifications.502
