Enrolment
All students have the right to enrol in school.
Students with disability have the right to enrol in a school on the same basis as students without disability. Schools are expected to make reasonable adjustments so that enrolment processes are fair to all students. The Disability Standards for Education 2005 This link will open in a new window (the Standards) set out how schools can ensure that students with disability have the same choices and opportunities to enrol in education as other students.
Education providers who uphold this right will:
- take reasonable steps to ensure their enrolment processes do not discriminate against students with disability
- ask students and their families if their disability affects their ability to enrol and, if it does, make adjustments so the student has the same enrolment choices and opportunities as students without disability.
Enrolment: In practice
Some of the ways schools comply with the Standards during enrolment include:
- meeting the student with disability and their family in person to explain the enrolment process
- providing enrolment brochures in large print for someone with low vision, to ensure the information is accessible
- ensuring online enrolment forms can be read by specialised computer programs that make the information accessible for people with low vision
- offering a personal tour of the school, or providing previous samples of classwork, to assist a student with disability to make an informed decision about whether to enrol in a school or course of study, based on information they can understand.
If you would like to know more about this topic, visit A brief guide to the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 on the Australian Human Rights Commission website.