Australian Federation of Disability Organisations

The Disability Standards for Education were tabled in Parliament on 17 March 2005 and came into effect on 18 August 2005. To view the Standards and related documents click here.

The Standards clarify the obligations of education providers to treat students with disability on the same basis as other students. This is critical to the development and inclusion of people with disability in the Australian community.

It is unlawful for an education provider to contravene the Standards.

Under the Standards all aspects of education must be accessible to students with disabilities including the classroom or lecture hall, practicum, sports programs and extra curricular activities.

Work on developing the Standards was most recently done for the disability sector by Sandi Seymour and Graham Smith, with assistance from Paul Cain.

To read the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations’ press release on the introduction of the Standards, click here (Media-Release-pdf) or (Media-Release-html.