Appendix 5 - excerpts from Whaikaha thinkpieces
Excerpt from Education thinkpiece
Key issues and opportunities for disabled children
and young people’s education
Alternative Education can be inequitable and ineffective for disabled
young people
40. Every year, over 2,000 disengaged young people are referred for enrolment in the
Alternative Education (AE) system, which aims to provide them with quality
education and support them back into education, training, or work. There are
several models of provision, but young people are generally taught in small groups,
often off school grounds, with greater flexibility.
41. Young people in AE are more likely to be neurodiverse and are three times more
likely to be diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Just
under a third of young people in AE have a mental health need, and most have
behaviour and learning challenges.39
39. Education Review Office, (2022). An alternative education? Support for our most disengaged young people.
https://evidence.ero.govt.nz/media/3aflzvgg/an-alternative-education-support-for-our-most-disengaged-young-people.pdf
link to page 2
Excerpt from Employment Thinkpiece: Key issues and opportunities for disabled people
in employment
Overall, disabled people are more disadvantaged than other
groups and are much less likely to be working, and earn less
money
33.While we have limited data about the employment outcomes for
neurodivergent people (e.g. ADHD, Autism, FASD), it is likely that many
of them have difficulty getting or maintaining a job. A 2023 report from
the Neurodiversity in Education Coalition estimated that one in three
autistic people are unemployed, and at least 50 percent of people in
prison have dyslexia and 25 percent have ADHD.
15
15 (Neurodiversity in Education Project, 2023)
Neurodiversity in Education Project. (2023).
White paper: Unlocking the
enormous potential of neurodiverse learnings. Neurodiversity in Education
Coalition (Autism NZ, ADHD NZ, Dyslexia Foundation of NZ, NZ Centre for
Gifted Education). Retrieved from
https://www.neurodiversity.org.nz/_files/ugd/d35134_61a369c759754b4f
b630f4309c7730d2.pdf
