Because educational and special educational changes have been so great over the last decade or so in Australia it is with some trepidation that I have agreed to write about the future of Special Education in this country. Since, however, the population of Australia is relatively small and because the States and State Education departments and policy makers appear to exchange information regularly and because Special Education has benefitted greatly by the injection of Federal funds, each of the States whilst developing their individual policies has a great deal in common, although some important differences exist.

Perhaps Victoria has taken the strongest position on considering the rights of all children to Special Education, noting among other things, that all children have a right to be educated in a regular school and that all children can learn and be taught. This last comment which raises the educability debate, will I believe continue to do so as we move into the end of the twentieth century. As disabled students are continually placed into regular schools it will undoubtedly lead to an ongoing discussion and debate about this issue. The question will continue to be asked whether spending seventeen or twenty five years to teach someone to feed themselves independently, to dress, to toilet and to learn to react to a variety of instructions is justified as we now debate issues like language learning and the acquisition of a word recognition vocabulary. It is proposed to discuss the future of Special Education under a variety of headings as follows.