Abuse in Care: Ministry of Education admits more effort needed to employ disabled and Deaf educators
Friday, 19 August 2022
Out of the 45 advisers to Deaf children employed by the Ministry of Education, the government agency knows of only one who is actually Deaf.
The 2020 data read out at the Royal Commission’s Abuse in Care inquiry – Institutional Response Hearing on Thursday, shows 1258 Deaf and hard of hearing children between 0-8 years old are being supported by these advisers.
And although the ministry actively recruits or provides incentives for Māori and Pacific teachers, the same programme does not exist for Deaf teachers.
Iona Holsted, chief executive and secretary for education, said “it's by no means the ideal situation”.
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“We aim for a system that will recruit diversity into the system, so we are hostage, I suppose, to the people who choose to go teaching,” she said.
“If we don't have teachers who are there and are Deaf, then the best we can do is to train them to sign and, so in the meantime, that's what we do.”
Holsted said a way to increase the diversity of teachers in the education system would be to offer incentives and make it easier for Deaf and disabled people to participate.
“I don't know that we have given a huge amount of thought to that, quite frankly, and I think we should,” she said.
At the disability, Deaf and mental health institutional care hearing in July, witness Mr EX told commissioners his Māori culture was denied because he never had access to te reo or tikanga while attending Kelston Deaf Boarding School between 1966 and 1973.
“My culture was pushed aside. I feel there is a disconnect to my culture. A part of me is missing,” he said.
He said there should be a lot more Māori staff at Deaf schools and more money invested in supporting kaupapa Māori.
“Back then, it was like Māori students were second-class citizens,” he said. “Māori success would improve if there was someone to push Māori initiatives.”
There was still more work to be done to recruit teachers who were Māori and Deaf, said national director of learning support and special education David Wales.
“Māori Deaf are a smaller group. Māori Deaf who are fluent in te reo and English and NZSL are even rarer,” he said.
“The challenge is even bigger for us to support the schools to bring those very special people into the workforce.”
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The issues of accessible school properties and accessible curriculum were also raised at the hearing.
Holsted said she had heard of cases where it’s taken two years to get an elevator put into the school. In some cases, the student had left to go another school before the lift was installed.
“There's a lot of work being done, especially speeding up the responsiveness,” she said.
Holsted said there was still work to be done to ensure an inclusive education system.
“ERO is very positive about the quality of our inclusive curriculum and the resources we produce to support teachers,” she said. “We also know that the majority of our teachers are not using them.”
The hearing continues on Friday with representatives from the Education Review Office and Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand giving evidence to the Royal Commission.