Students with a disability 'missing out'

The Australian Education Union is citing new statistics showing more than half of students with a disability are missing out on funded support at school.

The education union wants the federal government to fix the underfunding of students with a disability following the release of fresh data.

Figures released by the COAG Education Council this week show 469,000 students have a disability or learning difficulty but schools are only receiving funding to help 200,000.

"That is over a quarter of a million children with disability that schools are not funded to support. The question now is what action will Education Minister Simon Birmingham take to deal with this chronic underfunding?" Australian Education Union president Correna Haythorpe said in a statement on Saturday.