National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention
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Submission to National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention from
Australian Council of Deans of Education Incorporated
ABN: 5800 386 2359
Registered Office: 21 Boobialla Street O'CONNOR ACT 2602
President: Professor Mary Kalantzis
Dean, Faculty of Education, Language and Community Services, RMIT University
Secretary/Treasurer: Professor Terry Lovat
Pro Vice-Chancellor, Education and Arts (Central Coast Portfolio)
Executive Officer: Dr Andrew Harvey
Faculty of Education, Language and Community Services, RMIT University
Preamble:
The Australian Council of Deans of Education Incorporated (ACDE) welcomes the opportunity to make a submission to this inquiry.
ACDE is the national peak organisation representing deans of faculties of education and heads of schools of education in Australian universities, and in other institutions providing recognised teacher education qualifications. ACDE members are responsible for initial and post-initial teacher education (schools, VET, early childhood, tertiary, some other instructors/educators), education research and scholarship, and education research training.
ACDE is incorporated as an association in the ACT, and it is governed by a Board that includes representatives from each State and Territory.
Our submission is designed to complement the submission of the Melbourne International Health and Justice Group, and focuses on two key points identified in the HREOC guidelines, namely:
- What barriers exist to effective education in immigration detention? How could they be addressed?
- What is the best model for the provision of education in immigration detention, taking into account children's different languages and cultural backgrounds, developmental needs and detention times?
Executive Summary:
ACDE supports the submission entered by the Melbourne International Health and Justice Group (MIHJG) to the HREOC. The Council concurs with the belief of MIHJG that overwhelming humanitarian arguments now exist against the policy of mandatory detention of asylum-seekers. Moreover, ACDE notes that numerous alternatives to mandatory detention, many of them highly successful, have been established elsewhere (Tay 2000). In particular, the Swedish government has adopted a much more compassionate and, arguably, far more effective method of handling asylum-seekers since 1997 (MIHJG 2002).
That asylum-seekers, and particularly children, suffer appreciable psychological harm under mandatory detention is surely no longer in dispute (Sultan and O'Sullivan 2001; Steel and Silove 2001; Stephens, T. 2001). In many cases, those seeking asylum have already experienced considerable trauma before their arrival, and this is likely to be exacerbated by any prolonged period of detention (Phillips, S. 2001). Nevertheless, ACDE acknowledges that the Australian government remains committed to the policy of mandatory detention. Given this position, it is also necessary to suggest practical means by which potential harm to asylum-seekers may be limited, in the context of mandatory detention.
Many of the arguments in this submission are based on New Learning: A Charter for Australian Education, a comprehensive document released by the Council in 2001. As the peak national body for deans of faculties and heads of schools of education, ACDE has consistently maintained that education is the key to the promise of democracy, to the goals of opportunity and diversity, and to the development and ultimate prosperity of both individuals and nations. While much of the media coverage of, and community interest in, the plight of children in immigration detention has quite justifiably focused on health concerns, the paucity of education resources available to these children may be just as damaging in the long term.
Moreover, the education of asylum-seekers is not merely a question of harm minimisation. Experiences around the world highlight that the inclusion of refugee children in schools helps to promote tolerance and cultural diversity (Neustatter 2002). The benefits of effective and inclusive education can occur not only in the long term acquisition of skills and talents by those asylum seekers accepted into Australia, but in the immediate boost to diversity provided by their attendance at local community schools. However, many of these potential benefits can only be reaped if adequate resources are allocated and if effective programs are delivered.
1) Context:
The importance of providing effective education to children in immigration detention cannot be overstated. This section acknowledges that the specific recommendations which follow in Sections 2 and 3 require, amongst other things, an increase in the allocation of resources. The need for this increase is evident on humanitarian grounds from the relative paucity of educational programs and resources currently afforded these children. However, beyond humanitarian concerns, any change in government policy will clearly also involve an assessment of financial viability. ACDE believes that, in addition to the humanitarian argument, there are strong pragmatic reasons for the Australian government to improve the access to, and provision of, education to children in immigration detention. Moreover, some insight into the best model for education provision is gleaned from a broader examination of evidence.
The following passage is taken from New Learning: A Charter for Australian Education (ACDE 2001: 48-9):
Early learning is a key determinant of educational achievement (Hill & Russell 1994), children who attend any form of organised group preschool program when three or four years old have superior cognitive development to those who do not (Osburn & Mibank 1987), and participation in preschool programs has a marked impact on later school achievements and on individual economic success (CESCEO 2000; Kirby 2001).
New Learning (ACDE 2001: 49) also highlights the CESCEO report (2000) finding that for every $US 1000 invested in education, $US 7,160 was posted in return, while another report from the Australian Senate found similar returns for every dollar invested in preschool programs for disadvantaged children (Senate Employment, Education and Training Reference Committee 1996: 137).
The lessons from these reports are clear: society benefits from an educated populace and organised education from an early age is important in the long-term for individuals. Indeed, for individuals of all backgrounds, the positive effects of education are manifest. Those without post-school qualifications are more than twice as likely to be unemployed than those who have undertaken further study (ABS cat.4224.0), while there is a 33 per cent difference in average weekly earnings between those with post-school qualifications and those without (ABS cat 4224.0). The social ramifications of failure in education are highlighted by the fact that, in many states, nearly 90 per cent of prisoners have not completed secondary education (OCSC 2001).
The plight of children in immigration detention should be seen in the broader context of the value of education. While asylum seeker children manifestly have special needs, which are subsequently addressed in Sections 2 and 3, many of the arguments for providing them with higher quality education reflect the growing importance of education to individual identity and prosperity more generally.
2) What barriers exist to effective education in immigration detention? How could they be addressed?
It is tempting, and arguably correct, to say that the single largest barrier to effective education in immigration detention remains the condition of detention itself. As the following section argues, the formal education of children cannot be divorced from the environment in which it occurs, and children confined to detention centres with their parents are unlikely to receive the quality of education they might receive if allowed to live in the wider community. The only real way of addressing this barrier, of course, would be to consider the numerous effective alternatives to mandatory detention.
Whether the present system remains or not, however, there is a further overarching barrier to effective education. This is the continuing perception by government that the provision of education to asylum seekers is a cost to be minimised rather than an investment. This section will argue that the additional resources required for effective and inclusive education programs can be justified not only on humanitarian grounds, but by the demonstrable benefits to the nation of educating a diverse citizenry. Typically, most asylum seekers have their claims ultimately supported - the extraordinary diversity they bring to Australia should be recognised as an invaluable resource, yet too often their potential contribution to the nation's productive diversity is overlooked when financial decisions are made.
This perception of education as a cost is directly related to the immediately visible barriers to effective education in immigration detention, some of which are acknowledged if not acted upon by the federal government. Clearly, the multitude of cultural backgrounds, religions, and languages of asylum seekers makes a simple, homogenous curriculum difficult and often ineffective to deliver, whether in schools or in detention centres themselves. Varying degrees of proficiency in the English language complicate the delivery of education programs, and we are consistently reminded by the government of the practical limitations of the education of these children.
It is instructive to look overseas to find solutions to these apparent problems. In the United Kingdom, a number of initiatives have been introduced to accommodate asylum seeker children in local schools. These involve a realisation that refugee children have particular needs and require support, and a further recognition that the provision of such support is not only morally, but economically justifiable. Some helpful initiatives identified by Neustatter (2002) include the provision of:
- Family-school liaison workers;
- Interpreters, multiple translations of key materials, and relevant bilingual dictionaries and books;
- An after-school club and a therapy center;
- A mentoring program, where individual pupils are encouraged to look after refugees and link up with them as mentor figures.
Again, the intention behind these carefully tailored programs is both to provide asylum seeker children with maximum learning opportunities, and also to improve local schools by making them acknowledge and profit from the existence of diversity. Tackling racism and promoting tolerance have been key effects of the successful integration of asylum seekers in local schools (Neustatter 2002).
In this context, another obvious barrier in the Australian context is the isolation of the detention centres. For children to be integrated most effectively into local schools, they require those schools to be proximate, accessible, diverse and possessing significant infrastructure. It must be said that erecting fortresses in the desert is hardly conducive to the integration of asylum seeker children into local communities. Tackling this problem involves foremost an acknowledgement of the desirability of integration, and subsequently a decision to relocate the most remote detention centres to more appropriate environments.
It is impossible, however, to limit the discussion to these factors. Increasingly, research is revealing that all education must be contextualised in a broader environment. In fact, as Prof. Andrew Gonczi has highlighted, there is already much research being undertaken in a number of disparate fields which highlights the importance of emotional intelligence, and the connection between cognition, emotion and the body (Gonczi 2002). Collectively, what this research suggests is that the context and environment of learning is vitally important to educational outcomes. Clearly, this has implications for children in immigration detention, and if mandatory detention remains, there must at least be a more concerted attempt to integrate the children into local schools and into more normal community environments than detention centres.
3) What is the best model for the provision of education in immigration detention, taking into account children's different languages and cultural backgrounds, developmental needs and detention times?
To receive adequate education, children in immigration detention should be placed within integrated local schools. Resources and infrastructure should also be allocated along the lines suggested in Section 1, to accommodate the diversity of backgrounds, cultures and religions that these children bring to the schools. Further, the size of classes attended by immigrant children should be kept to a minimum, for the evidence on this matter is compelling. Perhaps the most notable study has been Tennessee's Project STAR (Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio), which tracked 11,600 students from 1985-1990 and found that students in smaller classes outperformed their peers academically, and that benefits were particularly evident to those who were from poor or disadvantaged backgrounds ('Sydney's new class struggle', Sydney Morning Herald, 30 April 2002).
More tailored curriculum and greater individual assistance also need to be provided, and these can be supplemented by mentoring programs and more creative curriculum approaches. Curriculum in schools attended by asylum seeker children, and preferably in other schools, should be pluralist in nature. If adopted, this approach would ultimately involve nothing less than a transformation of mainstream education. Instead of representing a single cultural destination, the mainstream would become a site of open-ness, negotiation, experimentation, and the interrelation of alternative frameworks and mindsets. A pluralist curriculum would recognise that learning is not a matter of 'development' in the sense presently considered. Asylum seeker children would not be encouraged to leave their old selves behind, nor to reject their lifeworlds, which have often been framed by education as more or less inadequate to the task of modern life in Australia.
Rather, the pluralist process of transformation would be a matter of expanding horizons rather than vertical progress. These new horizons would still have an impact on the lifeworld: learners would still engage in and with their lifeworlds in new ways, but not necessarily in order to leave those lifeworlds behind in a kind of one way trip. This is an ambitious program and ACDE concedes that it is unlikely in the short term that such radical changes to school curriculum will be developed in depth. Nevertheless, the articulation of this philosophy suggests a framework in which new programs may be developed, and some inchoate programs may be expanded, along diverse, inclusive and cross-cultural lines.
In the short term, family-school liaison officers would also help serve as a bridge between asylum seekers and school authorities, a link much-needed given the trying conditions under which all asylum seekers must operate in their day-to-day lives. The employment of these officers would necessarily involve additional resources, but the humanitarian and social cost of failing to provide these resources has already been amply demonstrated in the riots which have consistently plagued Australian detention centres.
Recommendations:
The following recommendations assume the continuing existence of mandatory detention of asylum seekers. It should be noted, however, that ACDE does not support mandatory detention and, further, believes it to be a significant barrier to the effective education of immigrant children.
1) Ensure that all children in immigration detention are able to attend local preschools and schools. Overseas experience suggests that integrated local schools can be effective learning environments for asylum seeker children, and these schools are preferable to the collective education of asylum seekers in an isolated classroom or institution, or in the detention centres themselves.
2) Move outlying detention centres to more populated areas. This is related to recommendation 1, and would potentially enable all children in detention to attend integrated local schools where infrastructure and resources were adequate for their individual needs.
3) Ensure appropriate pedagogical practice. This involves the training of teachers in schools attended by asylum seeker children (and preferably other schools) in cross cultural skills, and the ability to move beyond assimilationist education programs. It must be acknowledged that the asylum claims of some children's families will be rejected, and it is important that these children also take back with them the benefits of a diverse and culturally attuned education. Specific programs could be set up to assist teachers in the promotion of pluralist, cross cultural learning.
4) Ensure the employment of family-school liaison workers in education institutions. This would assist relations between family members and those institutions, and enable individual assistance to be provided to asylum seeker children.
5) Provide interpreters, multiple translations of key materials, and relevant bilingual education. It is vital that asylum seeker children have access to texts in languages other than English, and that assistance is provided in the area of English language proficiency. These resources must, however, be delivered in the context of cross cultural pedagogical practices, rather than in the name of mere assimilation (see point 3).
6) Establish after-school clubs and therapy centres. It is necessarily to rpovide children with a holistic education, and all efforts must be made to ensure an environment suitable to learning.
7) Establish mentoring programs within schools. These would encourage individual pupils to look after refugee children and link up with them as mentor figures. The programs would provide an important integrative and communication role, and assist both asylum seeker children and those who take on the mentoring role.
8) Ensure small class sizes. Given the needs and diverse backgrounds of asylum seekers, class sizes should be kept at low levels.
Bibliography
Australian Bureau of Statistics 2001, cat. 4224.0
Australian Council of Deans of Education (ACDE) 2001, New Learning: A Charter for Australian Education, ACDE, Canberra
Gonczi, A. 2002, 'Teaching and Learning of the Key Competencies', paper presented to OECD conference, January
Hill, P. & Russell, J. 1994, Resource Levels for Government Primary Schools, University of Melbourne, Faculty of Education, Melbourne
Kirby, P. 2001, Review of the Issues that Impact on the Delivery of Preschool Services to Children and their Families, Department of Human Services, Victoria, June
Melbourne International Health and Justice Group (MIHJG) 2002, submission to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention, unpublished
Neustatter, A. 2002, 'Little Hopes', in The Guardian, 30 April
OCSC (Office of the Correctional Services Commissioner) 2001, Statistical Profile: The Victorian Prison System 1995/1996 to 1999/2000, Department of Justice, Victoria
Osburn, A. & Mibank, J. 1987, The Effects of Early Education: A Report from the Child Health and Education Study, Clarendon Press, Oxford, cited in McCain & Mustard 1999, Reversing the Real Brain Drain: Early Years Study - Final Report, Ontario, Canada, Aprild
Phillips, S. 2001, 'Multiculturalism, advocacy and mental health: The connections between cultural diversity and social wellbeing', Paper delivered at Thinking Well - Mental Health and Wellbeing: Everybody's Business, conference, Preston, 20 - 21 September 2001: 6.
Senate Employment, Education and Training References Committee 1996, Childhood Matters: The Report on the Inquiry into Childhood Education, Canberra, Australia
Steel, Z. & Silove, D. 2001, 'The mental health implications of detaining asylum seekers', in Medical Journal of Australia, 175: 596-599.
Stephens, T. 2001, 'Barbed-wire playground', Sydney Morning Herald, 15 December.
Sultan, A. & O'Sullivan, K. 2001, 'Psychological disturbances in asylum seekers held in long term detention: a participant-observer account', in Medical Journal of Australia, 175: 587 - 589.
Sydney Morning Herald 2002, 'Sydney's new class struggle', 30 April.
Tay, A, 2000, 'Treatment of refugees should come from the heart', Sydney Morning Herald, 19 December.
Last Updated 10 October 2002.