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Policy on Education

Sign Language is seen as the main distinguishing feature that defines a Deaf Community. The role of Deaf Australia, with its Statement of Objects, is to enhance the status of Sign Language in Australian society, and to ensure that Deaf people have equality of opportunity and full participation in society.

To ensure that access to equitable education and the rights of deaf children and students are in place, Deaf Australia:

1. Reaffirms its position that all deaf people, including deaf children, have the right to access equitable education based on best bilingual practices, which includes instruction in Australian Sign Language (Auslan) and English;
2. Calls for both Auslan and English to be given equal status and respect. Both languages should be provided in a natural and accessible learning environment within a developmentally appropriate framework;
3. Supports universal newborn hearing screening programs but asserts these identification programs must be followed promptly by Auslan/English bilingual early intervention strategies and programs, in partnership with families, deaf adults, and professionals;
4. Calls upon governments (Commonwealth and States/Territories) to ensure full and equal access to optimal educational programs for deaf learners based on regular education goals, standards and curricula, in both mainstream (inclusive) settings and specialist classes and schools;
5. Reaffirms that such curricula should provide opportunities for deaf and hearing students to learn both Auslan and English as academic subjects. Supports the inclusion of Auslan as a Language Other than English (LOTE) subject in schools;
6. Calls for the establishment of a National Deaf Education Standards Group with a membership base that is representative of the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), deaf adults and bilingual education experts and is cooperative with Commonwealth and States/ Territory Education Advisory Groups;
7. Calls on education providers to ensure that there is adequate provision of appropriately qualified and competent specialist staff working with deaf children (e.g. consultant teachers, teachers of the deaf, interpreters, note takers, audiologists, speech therapists and ongoing training of these professionals);
8. Calls on education providers to ensure that appropriate educational outcomes are established and implemented for all deaf students and an assessment and monitoring program is implemented to ensure that each deaf student makes satisfactory progress, with the focus on equity of outcomes for deaf and hearing students;
9. Strongly asserts that it is essential that appropriately competent and knowledgeable deaf people receive appropriate training so they can be employed as teachers, educational professionals and members of educational teams;
10. Calls on education providers to provide resources for the development and delivery of effective Auslan and Deaf Studies (history, culture, etc.) programs, not only to deaf children, but also to their families, teachers and other professionals;
11. Calls on education providers to ensure that deaf learners who are placed in mainstream educational settings have equitable access to the services of trained and qualified sign language interpreters, support services, deaf peers and role models, and full participation in both educational and co-curricular activities;
12. Supports further research into:
    1. Cognition and learning in deaf children, and effective pedagogy;
    2. The development of strategies and valid instruments for teaching and assessing features of Auslan and the development of sign language fluency; and
    3. The relative benefits of acquiring an education using direct and indirect (via an interpreter) communication pedagogies;
13. Calls for recognition under Australian law of Deaf people's right to use Auslan so that education can be officially and legally delivered in Auslan for deaf students;
14. Deaf Australia endorses the Statement of Principle on the Education for the Deaf by International Congress of Educators of the Deaf (Vancouver - 2010).

References

Dawkins, J (1991). Australia's Language: The Australian Language and Literacy Policy. Australian Government Printing Service: Canberra

Deaf Australia Vision 2020 - http://www.deafau.org.au/profile/vision2020.php

Deaf Australia - Policy Advice Paper on Early Intervention for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children (2009) http://www.deafau.org.au

This policy was adopted by members at Deaf Australia's 24^th Annual General Meeting on 19^th November 2010.

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