NDIS vs School Responsibility in QLD: Who Pays for What?

Your child has an NDIS plan with therapy funding. The school says therapy should be delivered through the NDIS. The NDIS plan manager says therapy in school is an education responsibility. Meanwhile, your child is getting neither.

This is one of the most common and most exhausting disputes in Queensland disability education. Each system points at the other, and the student sits in the gap. Here is the actual legal and administrative framework — and what you can do to force both systems to meet their obligations.

The Core Principle: Two Systems, Overlapping Obligations

The NDIS and the Queensland education system are governed by separate legislation and funded through separate Commonwealth-state agreements. They serve different purposes. The NDIS funds supports related to a person's disability that are "reasonable and necessary" for their daily life, independence, and participation in the community. The education system — specifically Queensland state schools — is responsible for ensuring equitable access to education under the Disability Standards for Education 2005 (DSE 2005) and the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth).

The critical legal point is that these obligations are parallel, not substitutable. A school cannot use your child's NDIS plan as a reason to withdraw its own educational supports. If a student requires speech therapy in order to access the curriculum, that is an educational need — and the school has a DSE 2005 obligation to ensure it is provided, whether through its own resources, through the NDIS, or through a combination.

Equally, the NDIS cannot fund supports that are "most appropriately" provided by another system, including the education system. This is where the conflict genuinely exists — each system legitimately argues that some supports fall within the other's core responsibility.

What Queensland Schools Are Responsible For

Under the DSE 2005, Queensland schools are responsible for making "reasonable adjustments" to ensure students with disability can participate in education on the same basis as their peers. This includes:

• In-class pedagogical support — differentiated teaching, modified materials, assistive technology embedded in daily learning
• Behaviour support — proactive Behaviour Support Plans, sensory accommodations, regulated break spaces
• Educational allied health coordination — facilitating access to speech pathology, occupational therapy, and psychology as needed for curriculum access, including coordinating with NDIS providers to ensure therapy goals align with educational goals
• Teacher aide time — supporting the classroom ecosystem, prompting engagement, and implementing adjustments under the teacher's supervision

What schools are not required to fund is therapy that goes beyond what is needed for curriculum access — for example, intensive speech therapy targeting communication skills for daily life rather than classroom participation. This is where the NDIS is the appropriate funder.

What the NDIS Is Responsible For

The NDIS funds supports that are reasonable and necessary for a participant's disability, that are not the responsibility of another system (like education), and that relate to the participant's individual goals. In a school context, the NDIS may appropriately fund:

• Therapy sessions delivered outside school hours, targeting goals beyond curriculum access
• Specialist equipment that supports independence in daily life (not just school-specific devices)
• Support coordination to help the family navigate both systems
• Therapeutic supports for participation in community activities beyond school

The NDIS can also fund therapy within the school environment where the goals are related to the participant's individual disability support needs and the school consents to the provider accessing the premises. In Queensland, Specialist Disability Support in Schools (SDSS) providers — including organisations like Northcott and Royal Far West — can deliver funded NDIS therapy within school grounds under a formal arrangement. The school must sign a "School Request for Support" form to authorise access.

The Gap: When Both Systems Say "Not Us"

The conflict arises most sharply around:

In-school therapy delivery: The NDIS won't fund therapy if it considers the need educational. The school won't pay for it if it considers the need clinical. The NDIS Participant Planning Framework requires planners to consider what is "most appropriately" delivered by education — and planners sometimes apply this too broadly, excluding supports that genuinely serve both educational and disability purposes.

Teacher aide hours: Schools often claim they have no budget for additional aide time. Parents with NDIS plans are sometimes told to use NDIS funding to pay for in-school support workers. This is a misuse of NDIS funding — a school cannot offshore its DSE 2005 obligations to an NDIS plan. If your child's aide hours have been reduced and the school suggests you fund an NDIS support worker in their place, get this in writing and dispute it formally.

Assessment costs: Guidance Officer waitlists in Queensland are chronically long. Schools sometimes suggest parents use NDIS funding to pay for private psychological assessments. While NDIS can fund some assessments, the school also has an obligation under the DSE 2005 to ensure the student's needs are assessed — it cannot entirely delegate this obligation to the NDIS.

How to Force Accountability

Step 1: Get both systems' positions in writing. Ask the school in writing: "What specific supports is the school providing to meet its obligations under the DSE 2005, and what is the school requesting the NDIS fund in addition?" Ask your NDIS planner or LAC in writing: "Which of the supports in our plan does the NDIS consider the school's responsibility, and what is the basis for that view?"

When both systems have to commit their positions to writing, the gap becomes visible and documented.

Step 2: Cite the DSE 2005 to the school. Write to the school principal noting that your child's NDIS plan does not substitute for the school's reasonable adjustment obligations under the DSE 2005. Request a written explanation of how the school is meeting its Part 5 (Participation) and Part 7 (Student Support Services) obligations independent of NDIS funding.

Step 3: Request a joint planning meeting. In some cases, a meeting involving the school HOSES, the NDIS support coordinator, and the relevant therapist can map out which goals are educational, which are disability-related, and which overlap — and assign funding responsibility clearly. This is most effective when the NDIS support coordinator is actively advocating on the family's behalf.

Step 4: Escalate if the school withdraws support pending NDIS. If the school has withdrawn existing supports on the basis that "NDIS should fund it," send a formal letter citing the breach of the DSE 2005 and requesting immediate reinstatement pending any formal clarification of funding responsibilities. The school cannot unilaterally withdraw adjustments while a funding dispute is being resolved.

Regional Queensland: The Access Problem

In regional and remote Queensland, the NDIS vs school boundary dispute has an additional dimension: NDIS providers may not be locally available to deliver in-school therapy, and the school's own allied health resources are chronically insufficient. In this context, the "who pays" argument becomes academic because neither system is actually delivering.

For regional families, the most effective advocacy focuses on the school's obligation to facilitate allied health access through the SDSS program — providers like Royal Far West deliver telehealth and visiting services specifically for regional schools. Getting the school to sign the SDSS referral form, and documenting what happens if they refuse, creates the evidence base for escalation.

The Queensland Disability Advocacy Playbook includes letter templates for NDIS-school boundary disputes, formal requests for SDSS access, and documentation frameworks for tracking support gaps across both systems. Get the complete toolkit at /au/queensland/advocacy/.

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