Focus On Education Of Disabled

Newcastle Herald

Tuesday March 1, 2005

By JASON GORDON

BROAD changes to the way people with disabilities were educated needed to be implemented if Australian curriculums were to keep pace with those elsewhere in the world, a leading Hunter academic said yesterday.

Dr Jeanne Boote, a teacher consultant to people with disabilities at Hunter Institute of TAFE's Tighes Hill campus, returned recently from a five-week study tour of the United Kingdom and Europe.

Dr Boote presented her final report on the tour to Premier Bob Carr at a function in Sydney on Sunday.

"We need to promote a real learning focus on all of our curricula," Dr Boote said.

"We can teach a young person the skills to become employable, but we need to recognise that learning is one of the most important skills they'll need, both in life and at work.

"We can teach them to do things and achieve things but they need to get the learning bit right so that they can move along."

Dr Boote met peak groups in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland and France and said core teaching methods for disabled people in those countries "were about two years ahead of us".

Dr Boote's findings will go to the Department of Education and will also be the subject of a presentation to a forum of national peers in Brisbane in April.