Speaker 1 0:00
Welcome to a Vision Australia radio podcast. Love our podcasts. Why not listen to us live, tune in anywhere, anytime, ask your smart device to play Vision Australia radio or visit va radio.org
Speaker 2 0:21
on the Vision Australia and reading radio networks. This is the Powerd news rep,
Sam Rickard 0:26
Gilda. I'm Sam Ricard. It's the fifth of November, 2025 we're reading articles from the Powerd dot media website. And of course, joining me as of normal is the effervescent Emma Myers, hello, Emma. Andy. So we are diving a little bit into the history books, in a way, because we've got a article from the start of the year and one from probably about a month ago, but it's an education theme, and I think we could all have our own views on education, because we've all been through the education
Emma Myers 1:01
system. Indeed we have.
Sam Rickard 1:03
What's funny, and we've swapped notes about this before in the past, is that I went through primary and high school education in the late 70s, in the early 80s, and there's something like a 20 year difference between our ages, so you went through a lot later, and some of what we've gone through sounds very familiar. I'm take it. You would have also had a little bit of bullying going
Emma Myers 1:31
on, to the point where I almost dropped out of school in year 10. It got so bad, and that's a bit most of my time hiding in class during the breaks, just so I wouldn't be bullied. So, yeah, just a little bit of childhood drama,
Sam Rickard 1:48
and what did the teachers do about it? I mean, did they tell you to just simply walk away like they used to in my
Emma Myers 1:55
generation? They did it first, but then when it got so bad, what they actually ended up doing was they called the full school assembly with 800 students. I was sitting among them, and then they physically pointed me out in the crowd and told every single person not to bully me, which then, hopefully you can imagine just made it 10 times worse.
Sam Rickard 2:25
Course, it does. I mean, it's you point something, point somebody out, and it's like, oh yeah, you just put a target on someone's back. I don't know how understand how that
Emma Myers 2:33
I mean, I mean, I had, I had kids stealing needles from the Home Economics room just to put in my tires so I get tired, I couldn't get into my classroom for a lot of the time, so I'd park my chair outside of the classroom, and then I'd just hear kids going by, turning and on, vaping The horn, laving rubbish on my chair, and at one point I was cornered and kicked severely in the legs because the kids thought that I couldn't feel anything below my legs like it was just awful.
Sam Rickard 3:14
Yeah, I had a bully in late primary school, and pretty much he made part of his routine to essentially beat me up just before class started. It got to the point where, at one stage, he followed me home, essentially, which basically meant that we took things into our own hands, really. My uncle, at that stage, was working for worm old security, and he came, came to school with my grandmother, and so my grandmother had this nice, reasonable conversation with this bully, saying, Yeah, sounds really a nice kid, you know, all this or that sort of stuff. And we'd rather you don't, you know, you didn't, you didn't do this. And then my uncle, pretty much said, if he you know, if I hear about you doing this again, I'm going to find you. So that sorted that situation out, probably not the right way of doing it, but it was the right way of doing it, from my standpoint. So it's something that still goes on, because if you're vulnerable, if you're weak, children have no filter.
Emma Myers 4:15
Oh, and look, I reckon there's an element where, when children are regularly thought they've got no filter, and it's funny, and I actually find it quite flattering, and use their questions to educate them, because they really have got the funny way of viewing the world when they're really Little, but when they entered the upper echelons of primary and high school, but that feel tick goes being funny to harmful,
Sam Rickard 4:51
indeed, and yeah, then it needs to be more, more done. I don't know what, because I'm not a professional educator, but there needs to be more done. All right, we're going over. Is the news with two news readers this time first is Helen rice and then, of course, Cameron Stark.
Speaker 2 5:06
Thank you, Sam, three in four disabled students are bullied or excluded at school, with three in four impacted. According to a new survey by children and young people with disability Australia, the cyda reports of bullying in 2024 included verbal abuse, physical violence, sexual and online harassment and social exclusion, with students describing being spat on, threatened, groped or mocked for their disability. Lily Galton, a student with cerebral palsy and autism from Perth, faced some of this. First hand, the 12 year old said fights and problems occurred daily, but were brushed aside as minor misunderstandings by staff. There was a boy in my class who told someone not to waste their energy running from me when we played that really hurt, says ms Galton cyda found over seven out of 10 disabled students were bullied last year, out of the 118 Australian students who took part in the survey, more than two in three left the education system early, citing inaccessibility, discrimination and bullying as the main reasons. Lily's mother, Jenny Crowther had to explain her daughter's disability repeatedly to her daughter's school, a process she called exhausting. The biggest challenge has been getting staff, parents and students to understand that neuro divergent kids can interpret the same situation very differently, and that matters. She says there are passionate teachers and staff who go above and beyond, but the system isn't set up to give them the time, tools or resources they need. Sky kokoschke Moore, the CEO of cyda, says she's not surprised by Lily and Jenny's experience. Students with disability and their families have been telling governments for years that our schools are simply not set up to truly include them with more than 500,000 children and young people with disability aged 25 and under in Australia, the impact on current and former students is staggering. The damning findings have fuelled widespread calls from the disability sector for all political candidates to commit to urgent action on inclusive education this federal election, most students with disability are enrolled in mainstream schools, making it critical these settings provide genuine inclusion and support. The Disability royal Commission's final report called for the implementation of a national roadmap for inclusive education. But while the federal government and all States and Territories agreed to the idea in principle, no concrete steps have been taken towards making it a reality. The CEO of cyda says the advocacy organization calling on all candidates to finally deliver on inclusive education by committing to provide federal funding to schools to guarantee safe and quality education for students with disability. This election is the time to end this trend. Ms kokoski Moore says
Speaker 3 8:08
students with disability could see an improvement to their overall education journey as the Australian government begins its review into the Disability Standards for Education, the Department of Education defines the Disability Standards for Education, which was introduced in 2005 as guidelines to ensure students with disability can access and participate in education in a fashion equal to students without disability, to make sure the Australian education sector is supporting students with disability to access and participate in education and training, the federal government is requesting feedback from the disability community. Caitlin Sayer, who has an intellectual disability and is autistic, says she felt very segregated during her high school years when she was enrolled in segregated education. I had gone to a mainstream primary school and then was told I would be better suited for a disability school. I felt like I was railroaded. Miss saya believes segregated education is partially responsible for how people treat those with disability outside of the education system. When you come out of the school system, people do not know how to talk to you or be around you because they may have been separated from people with disabilities their whole life. Senior Lecturer in inclusive education at Macquarie University, Dr Cathy coligon, agrees, explaining how little has changed since the last review into the Disability Standards for Education, which occurred back in 2020 to achieve that position where we're actually not discriminating against people who experience disability is going to be very difficult whilst we maintain parallel systems of segregated and mainstream education. According to the Department of Education, the government is looking for feedback from the disability community around how well the disability. Candidates for education are being implemented if responsibilities for education officials are clear and improvement suggestions to support inclusive decision making and complaints handling. Dr coligon believes it's vital to have a transparent process that is trauma informed and accessible, making sure individuals can genuinely communicate in a way that works for them. For a lot of children and families, going through a compliance process is quite a traumatic experience. She says it's really important that we recognize, respect, gather and value that input from people who experience disability. The senior lecturer is optimistic that shining a light on greater awareness of ableism and disability rights will positively influence the consultation period and possible changes to the Disability Standards for Education in the future. My big hope is that we can have a bit more of an understanding of the need to move away from the idea that education for those of us who are disabled is optional or other to the core business of education, said Dr coligon. Now back to Emma and Sam. So
Sam Rickard 11:10
Emma, we've got more to unpack on this one, hopefully we have the ability to finish the show on a high note.
Emma Myers 11:17
Yes, so the government is looking for feedback from the disability community to update the disability education standards, which really haven't been looked at in Wow, 20 years. So it'd be interesting to see what the government hears from those within the disability space. I don't know about
Sam Rickard 11:45
you, but my experience has always been it's either been very, very, very, very, very good or very, very poor, depending on how much attention a particular educator is prepared to put into you. So, I mean, I've in the past, learnt a lot just because there's of that one teacher that's decided to take an interest,
Emma Myers 12:02
yeah, I mean, it's the same with the museum. I mean, I think they're two orcas that ends with the same stick. But every person had their favorite teacher in school, whether you had a great time at school or not, and so I had a couple of favorites who really taught me personal skills as well as educational learning as well as again, they let me hide in their classroom during breaks. But really, I didn't really look fondly on my educational experience until I met my university mentor and I went to university because the difference is, people at university are there because they want to be, not because they have to be. That's an
Sam Rickard 12:55
interesting viewpoint. I mean, from my standpoint, I found that I had a better time of things in my later high school years. So from year 10 onwards, and again, it's probably because, as you're getting to year 11 and 12, at least this beat list back in my day, those that were left actually did want to be there. You could actually leave and leave in year 10. And also, it was when I was some of my more influential teachers were actually involved there, and I found that if the better you were in class, quite often, you could actually get in a good, solid circle of friends around you and the bullying, it would stop. The
Emma Myers 13:32
thing is that my bullies weren't actually in my year. It's interesting, because since finishing high school, I've gone on to do all of these different things. And people who I didn't think took any notice of me whatsoever have actually started messaging me and saying like, you know, I can't believe you've achieved all of this. You know, it's a great you've got a great thing going on and, but they also work in, you know, special education, or they just followed my journey and, and when they see me, they pretty much just run up and give me a great big hug. And I didn't realize that people in my own ear were watching me as much as they actually were. So it's just a really interesting thing. And it doesn't seem like, Oh, you've got something useful that I can take advantage of. It really is just this kind of holds them well, I'm so glad that you've achieved all of this, which is really interesting.
Sam Rickard 14:45
Well, sometimes the quietest people are the ones that have been paying the most attention. Anyway, that is it for this week. What have we got to look forward to in the future? What are you working
Emma Myers 14:56
on? Well, I'm doing an interview with one of the NDIS ministers. And I'm also talking a bit about the social media ban that's coming into effect sooner rather than later. So I'm talking about how the social media ban will affect young people with disability.
Sam Rickard 15:16
Well, until then, it's bye. For now,
Speaker 2 15:19
bye, bye. You can find these articles and more by going to Powerd spilt, P, O, W, E, R, D, dot media, along with the podcast of this show, the Powerd newsrat was brought to you by disability media Australia. This show was produced by Sam Rickard in the Adelaide studios of Vision Australia radio. You.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
