Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2016
For the past twenty years integration of students with special needs has been emerging as one of the most significant educational and social challenges facing the world’s communities. Since the early 1970’s, the Commonwealth Schools Commission has supported attempts throughout Australia to integrate students with special needs into ordinary school settings, rather than to expand provision of segregated schools and centres. The nature and funding level of the Commission’s integration element has been the subject of extensive discussion in recent years and these discussions have now extended to the regular school arena where increasing numbers of students with special needs are being integrated. There was, therefore, wide consenus throughout Australia that a review of integration was needed at this time. The national review reported in this paper was commissioned by the Commonwealth Schools Commission in response to a request from the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation to participate in a three-country (Australia, Sweden and France) review of integration policies and practices. The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of the factors identified in this review as being vital to effective integration in Australia.