The Feasibility and Challenges of Including Students with Diverse Needs in Victoria Australia

Developed economies like the U. S, Canada, and Australia has made significant effort in ensuring that children with diverse needs are included in the normal education set up. Although Hong Kong is classified as a developed economy, it still lags behind with regards to consideration of learners with diverse needs in the normal education system while compared to other developed economies. In ensuring effective inclusive practices, there are a number of challenges that must be addressed. The current paper examines the feasibility as well as challenges of including students with diverse needs in the state of Victoria, Australia. Shared Vision and Policy The state of Victoria recognizes the importance of establishing a shared vision as well as policy for inclusive education that is crucial in supporting schools towards educating and supporting students with diverse needs.

The state’s government and specifically the policy-makers work together with schools, students, and their families in developing an inclusive education policy as well as a framework together with provision of support materials that provide clear and practical advice, tools and resources. According to Victoria State Government (2016), this happens through the "Education State's Framework for Improving Student Outcomes. " However, it has specific roles like setting expectations and additionally advancing consideration as one of the essential initiatives schools in Victoria are required to focus on. The vision and policy of the state equally recognize the importance of Victorian teachers to undergo complete professional training on how to s teach learners with incapacities as one of the states of enlistment with the Victorian Institute of Training.

The state is equally dedicated towards ensuring the health and wellbeing of this crucial workforce. These teams work in collaboration towards ensuring that there is an all-encompassing, corresponding and centered arrangement of aptitudes together with assets for understudies with inabilities and extra needs. At the center of these multi-disciplinary teams are senior education improvement leaders who collaborate with others in determining the required support and at the same time drive coordinated action (State Government of Victoria, Australia, 2017). The state works with the multi-disciplinary teams towards establishing a collaborative approach for students with diverse needs by relying on the deep understanding together with the knowledge possessed by families about their children and the existing scientific expertise from the workforce. Roles of other important contributors like student support services officers are equally taken into account.

These tools are essential in not only motivating students with autism spectrum disorder to learn but also in stimulating their cognitive abilities and improving on their level of comprehension and understanding. The state of Victoria has autism specific school accessible to victims of the disorder where they are provided with valuable expertise. This expertise has in recent years been shared in mainstream schools to help them become more inclusive in their learning environments. By partnering with non-governmental organizations, the state’s education agenda is supported where schools are profoundly coordinated with the nearby networks and similarly shape solid association with the specialist organizations together with organizations to guarantee enhanced understudy results (State Government of Victoria, Australia, 2017). Specifically, in helping students with autism spectrum disorder, the state actively works with teachers and experts towards coming up with the best materials and resources to help the students address their communication, behavioral, and social challenges.

There are equally diminishing funds as children progression from primary-secondary school. This happens due to the fact that the education needs, resources, tools, and equipment required are much more in secondary school as opposed to the primary school. Secondary School Structure and Professional Knowledge While it is true that the physical structures, especially of old schools restrict accessibility of education and learning facilities among students with physical disabilities, the organization structure of secondary schools impedes teacher acquisition of individual student knowledge. As found out previously, teachers’ knowledge of individual students is essential towards the achievement of inclusive education (Furlonger et al. Therefore, when teachers are in a structure that limits student knowledge, it becomes impossible to achieve inclusive education. Lessons Learnt For Implementation in Hong Kong Despite Hong Kong being categorized as a developed economy, it lags behind in a number of issues like ensuring inclusive education while compared to other developed countries.

The case example of Victoria State in Australia and the measures it has taken in the quest to help students with diverse need provides a lot of lessons for implementation of inclusive education in the Hong Kong setting. Additionally, the existing challenges in the Victorian setting equally provide a learning point for Hong Kong as it can limit most of those challenges considering that it already has prior knowledge. Some of the notable lessons comprise of the need to come up with a well-defined vision and policy for establishing inclusive education, investing in research, relying on multi-disciplinary teams, improving transition from primary school to secondary school, and also coming up with structures, technology, tools, and equipment to help children with special needs especially those suffering from anxiety disorder and dyslexia.