An inquiry into the success of the integration process in Victorian Post Primary schools

Abstract

This study sets out to examine how teachers with integration responsibility within Post Primary schools and the student participants in integration perceive the levels and forms of success of the programs.

After reviewing the relevant literature it became clear to the writer that the major barriers to success of integration are organizational and structural in nature and that the perceived level of success of programs appears to be linked to the ways particular schools are structured and administered.

A survey of a sample of integration teachers and a sample of their students was conducted to examine whether there was a difference between the success of integration programs in schools that were collaboratively organized compared to those organized in a traditional way.

Most Victorian Post Primary schools are basically conservative and traditional, but under pressure from many sources there is a shift towards being more flexible, open and collaborative. Integration teachers in all schools were expected by the Ministry of Education to act as agents of change but in general teachers appear to have assumed the role ascribed the remedial teacher.

The findings of this study indicate that curriculum changes are taking place at a much faster rate in collaborative schools which place a value on student-centred learning. The administration of these schools was found to be active in initiating integration policy and programs, whilst in traditional schools it was the parents who were the significant initiators of integration. The collaborative schools also tended to provide more successful individual programs for their integrated students and obtained a higher allocation of physical and professional resources although both types of schools indicated a high failure rate in the area of needed resources.

Overall there is evidence of a shift towards flexibility and co-operation in secondary schools but this is happening within a context of inadequate policy formulation, poor organization and sensitive resource provision, so it is not clear cut.

The study indicates a need for policy orientated research regarding the provision of resources and investigation into professional development programs for teachers involved in meeting the needs of integrated students.