by Catherine Delahunty
Last year the Minister of Education was repeatedly asked in the House if there would be cuts to New Zealand Sign language education during the night class debacle. She always said that this was not going to happen. If you read the Manawatu Standard yesterday, it has started to happen, in that region at least.
Doesn’t the Government know that NZSL is the third national language along with Te Reo and English? What is the Deaf Community supposed to make of this sabotage?
Apparently people in the Manawatu Region were told to buy the DVD.
The suggestion that you can learn to sign language from a DVD sounds reasonable at first glance, but a very smart colleague of mine who is part of the Deaf Community just tried this learning method and she said it was very difficult and unsatisfactory.
Cutting out the NZSL teachers in any part of the country is disastrous for the future of the language but also for the human rights of children and adults who need to sign. NoRightTurn calls the decision ‘simply evil’.
Where else might this have happened and who else is missing out? What about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities?
It is a sign of the times and it’s not good enough!
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare | Justice & Democracy by Catherine Delahunty on Fri, February 5th, 2010
Tags: Catherine Delahunty, disability, NZSL, sign language, UN
More posts by Catherine Delahunty | more about Catherine Delahunty
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
It hasn’t been a good week for Tolly, has it Catherine. The debacle over National Standards, getting Tomahawked, and now this.
I guess Tolley’s refusal to front the cameras over the Tomahawk Primary non-closure and her abysmal media performance over National Standards must have been why they decided to get Heather Roy to front this one.
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From a purely political perspective – I just can’t understand why Tolley does this kind of thing? Didn’t she learn from the cuts last year to those grants for disabled children studying at schools. Doesn’t she realize that when people see disabled children and their exhausted parents weeping on TV then public sympathy is going to be on their side?
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My fingers are all twisty and rampant.
It’s frightening the children.
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Surely she doesn’t make these decisions alone? They would have to be discussed with others in Cabinet (and in Dept of Education).
I suspect that a small bunch of blokes make the bullets, and in the Education arena Tolley gets the job of firing them. (Meanwhile the blokes duck for cover when appropriate.)
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Eredwen, Lucy -
you both make valid comments, but you fail to understand the complexity for a National Governemnt.
Anne Tolley=glove puppet
Bill English=hand
The various layers of policy wonks, press secretaries and Ministerial advisors don’t get a look in.
BTW, if anyone in Wellington knows anyone at the Ministry personally, this afternoon might be a nice time to suggest ‘commiseratorial drinks’ after work at the Occidental or sumsuch.
Knowing the lead-in time for policy development, this has either been done grudgingly by ministerial staff who have carried over from the previous government, or it’s been sprung on them by a working party from within National’s policy development ranks (ie: consultants), who would have done the research without Ministry staff having a clue it was going on. Yep, I’m looking at DPF’s little marketing firm here, too.
‘fly-
you’ll be getting the ‘put those hands away’ message, then, won’t you?
Not all academics doing teaching research are ‘bad’, either, ‘fly.
I’ve just spent a few years with some very intelligent people studying linguistics at VUW, who shared a resources room with me.
They are deaf students, who have been part of the academic project to improve resources for teaching NZSL, and have refined the official dictionary of NZSL, along with Professor Janet Holmes in the School of Linguistics. I’m sure the entire floor in Von Zedlitz building is appalled.
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Katie – apologies to all academics everywhere, especially those doing educational research – shine on you crazy diamonds!
Loved the image of Bill English giving Tolley a hand-up!
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Not only did the Minister of Education give assurances of support for Deaf students (albeit purposefully vague) but Assc. Minister Heather Roy said that major decisions would be dependent on the Special Education Review, which is only in the discussion stage.
Try telling these students and their families, who will now need to move to Christchurch in order to get support, that this decision is not a major one.
Lynne Pillay’s point about the cuts being shortsighted is good, however the sooner disability ceases to be a form of insult the better.
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