Nov 14: TASMANIA'S education minister Nick McKim has been accused of ignoring the plight of disabled students who do not qualify for severe disability funding.

Autism Tasmania and the education union say hundreds of students with learning difficulties will miss out on special assistance next year because public schools' budgets have been slashed.

Mr McKim yesterday declined to respond to the concerns. He instead repeatedly stated that no cuts were being made to Severe Disability Register (SDR) funding, which would, in fact, increase slightly to cope with a small increase in the number of children on the register for next year.

But yesterday Autism Tasmania acting chief executive Kristen Desmond said the SDR only related to a very small percentage with autism and other problems.

She and the AEU said schools had routinely been using money from their own discretionary spending funds to "top up" the inadequate support from the State Government for disabled students. Ms Desmond said parents wanted to know why students who did not qualify for SDR funding were being overlooked.

"We're not talking about SDR funding, only a very small number of students qualify for the SDR, what about the others?" she said.

Ms Desmond said in other states students with an IQ of less than 70 or 75 automatically qualified for SDR funding, while in Tasmania they had to be below 55 to qualify.

Mr McKim said he was not aware of parents paying for extra teachers aides out of their own pockets.

"We don't ask parents to do that and I'm not aware of that happening, that's not to say that it's not," he said.

Source: http://www.themercury.com.au