(Transcript from World News Radio)
School principals say they are facing an urgent crisis in funding students with a disability-- and most have been forced to dip into other budgets to support their disabled students.
The survey by the Australian Education Union found most principals say they don't have adequate funding to support children at their school with special needs.
Naomi Selvaratnam reports.
16-year-old Ben Smith was born with a development disorder.
The Year 11 student says his schools have failed to support his educational needs.
"At my last school I was bullied and I was left out of a three day school trip."
Ben's mother, Theresa Duncan, says her son has changed school several times to get better support.
"This impacts on my son's future. He wants to work and we believe he's entitled to a good education to achieve that."
The Australian Education Union says many schools are struggling to support the needs of children like Ben.
A survey of 3300 schools across the country claims almost 80 per cent of schools nationally say they don't have the resources to teach children with disabilities.
Most principals say they've had to reallocate funds from other areas to assist students with special needs.
Stephanie Gotlib from Children with Disabilities Australia says she is not surprised by the findings.
"We hear of examples daily of really poor education experiences and it's not infrequent that we hear of students having to attend school part time because there's no resources to meet the needs of students with disability."
The federal government last year introduced a system to provide extra payments to schools for each student with a disability - at a cost of $1.2 billion this year alone.
Federal President of the AEU, Correna Haythorpe, says this is not enough.
"When 8 out of 10 principals tell us that they do not have the resources in place to cater for these children, then we have a crisis in education."
That's a claim Federal Education Minister, Christopher Pyne, rejects.
"There is more money being spent this year on children with disabilities in schools than last year, than the year before that. So in fact, funds are increasing for children with disabilities across Australia."
The National Disability Insurance Scheme doesn't cover educational costs.
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