Koorie Students with Disability in Victorian Schools: IEPs, Marrung, and Advocacy

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students with disability face compounded barriers in the Victorian education system. Structural under-resourcing, systemic bias in exclusionary discipline, cultural safety failures, and diagnostic barriers that disadvantage First Nations children all interact to create a significantly harder advocacy landscape.

If you are a parent or carer of a Koorie student with disability, there are specific policy protections and mandatory requirements that apply to your child — separate from, and in addition to, the general disability framework. Knowing these protections is not a minor detail. It is the difference between your child being supported within a framework that acknowledges their full identity, and being processed through a generic system that ignores it.

The Marrung Framework

Marrung: Aboriginal Education Plan 2016-2026 is the Victorian Government's 10-year plan for improving educational outcomes for Aboriginal students across all stages of learning, from early childhood through to adulthood. It was developed in partnership with Aboriginal communities and sets out DET's commitments to culturally responsive, strengths-based education.

For families, Marrung matters because it establishes expectations and accountability mechanisms that apply specifically to Koorie students — beyond what the general disability framework provides. The plan includes commitments to community consultation, cultural safety in schools, and ensuring that Aboriginal students' identities are embedded in, not appended to, their educational programs.

When advocating for a Koorie student with disability, referencing Marrung at SSG meetings places the conversation within the explicit policy framework the Department has committed to. It shifts the conversation from "what accommodations can we fit into the existing program" toward "how does this student's cultural identity shape what an inclusive education looks like for them."

The Mandatory IEP Requirement for Koorie Students

Under DET policy, an Individual Education Plan (IEP) is mandatory for all Koorie students — regardless of whether they have Tier 3 Disability Inclusion funding or any disability funding at all.

This is a significant protection that many families are not aware of. The mandatory IEP requirement for Koorie students exists independently of the disability framework. It means your child has a right to a documented, personalised education plan even if the school has not initiated one, even if the DIP outcome was unsuccessful, and even if the school claims resourcing constraints prevent them from setting one up.

For a Koorie student who also has disability-related support needs, the IEP must reflect both the disability adjustments (as informed by the DIP and NCCD process) and the cultural identity and community context of the student. These are not separate documents — they should be integrated into a single plan that treats the student as a whole person.

If your child's school is not maintaining a current IEP, raise this at an SSG meeting with explicit reference to the DET's IEP policy and the Koorie student mandate. If the school continues to resist, escalate in writing to the principal.

Engaging the Koorie Education Coordinator

The Department of Education has Koorie Education Coordinators (KECs) based at the DET Regional Office level across Victoria. Their role is to support schools in delivering culturally responsive education for Koorie students, and they can be an important ally in the advocacy process.

KECs can:

• Attend SSG meetings for Koorie students, providing cultural support and ensuring the student's identity is appropriately reflected in planning
• Provide schools with advice on Marrung commitments and culturally safe practices
• Assist families in escalating concerns through DET regional channels
• Connect families to community-based supports and culturally appropriate services

If your relationship with your child's school is strained, requesting that the Koorie Education Coordinator attend the next SSG meeting is a way to bring an informed, culturally competent voice into the room without the cost or formality of a private advocate.

Disability Inclusion and Cultural Safety

The Disability Inclusion Profile process — which determines Tier 3 individual funding — should, in principle, assess the student's functional needs without racial bias. In practice, the research is clear that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students with disability face disproportionate rates of exclusionary discipline, including informal exclusions, reduced timetables, and formal suspensions.

Research consistently finds that disability-related behaviour in Aboriginal students is more likely to be responded to with punitive measures than with proactive reasonable adjustments. This is both an Equal Opportunity Act 2010 concern (indirect discrimination) and a DSE 2005 concern (failure to provide reasonable adjustments).

When documenting your child's needs for an SSG meeting, DIP preparation, or complaint process, be explicit about any patterns of discipline that appear disproportionate or that have escalated when adjustments were not in place. The connection between under-support and behavioural distress is recognised in DET policy — schools must document and address this cycle, not respond to it punitively.

Under Ministerial Order 1125, principals must document extensive prior interventions, SSG meetings, and support strategies before expelling a student receiving "substantial" or "extensive" NCCD adjustments. This procedural protection is particularly important for Koorie students with disability, who face above-average risk of exclusionary outcomes.

Culturally Safe Advocacy

Effective advocacy for Koorie students with disability requires more than knowing the DET's policy requirements. It requires bringing cultural considerations into the meeting room as central — not peripheral — to the discussion.

Some practical considerations:

• Does the school have Aboriginal community members or Elders who are engaged in student wellbeing planning?
• Is the student's cultural identity acknowledged and integrated into their IEP goals, not just in a tokenistic way?
• Is there a culturally appropriate support person (separate from the school's preferred advocate) who understands both the community and the system?
• Have the student's own aspirations — through the Student Voice Tool — been captured in a culturally safe way?

The Marrung plan specifies that Aboriginal student voice is central to planning. The DET's own Student Voice Tool is one mechanism for this, but it is not culturally tailored. For some Koorie students, a more appropriate consultation process — involving family, community, or an Aboriginal education officer — may be warranted.

The Victoria Disability Advocacy Playbook at /au/victoria/advocacy/ covers the general DIP process, IEP requirements, and the escalation pathway through DET and VEOHRC — frameworks that apply to all Victorian students with disability, including Koorie students who have the additional protections described in this post.

The Compounded Advocacy Burden

Families of Koorie students with disability are often navigating two sets of systemic failures simultaneously — the disability education system's inadequacies and the broader systemic barriers that Aboriginal families face within public institutions. That compounded burden is real, and the advocacy burden should not fall entirely on families to carry alone.

Engaging the Koorie Education Coordinator, connecting with the Association for Children with a Disability (ACD) Victoria, and where appropriate involving regional Aboriginal legal services — all of these reduce the isolation that comes with advocacy in a system that was not designed with your child in mind.

Your child has a right to an education that is both genuinely inclusive of their disability and genuinely respectful of their cultural identity. Those rights exist in writing. Enforcing them takes documentation, persistence, and knowledge of the specific mechanisms that apply — and that knowledge is the starting point for change.

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