Wellington Association for Deaf Children
We have written to Hon Chris Hipkins, Minister for Education and Hon Kelvin Davis, Associate Minister for Education to ensure accessibility of COVID 19 Home Learning.
NZSL Translation (with thanks to our committee member Erica): https://www.facebook.com/Wellingtonassociationfordeafchildren/videos/1577886692369355/
STARTS
Wednesday 10 April 2020
Via email to:
Hon Chris Hipkins, Minister of Education
Hon Kelvin Davis, Associate Minister of Education
Dear Sirs
We are pleased to see the announcement made today in respect of “Covid19: Government moving quickly to roll out learning from home”
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/covid19-government-moving-quickly-roll-out-learning-home
and
“Making learning from home accessible to Māori learners and whanau”
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/making-learning-home-accessible-m%C4%81ori-learners-and-wh%C4%81nau
We wish to ensure that these alternate services are fully accessible to Deaf and Hard of Hearing learners. Specifically:
1. We request that both pop-up Television channels (the English medium and the Māori medium) are same language captioned. For the Māori medium channel, subtitles in English should also be available.
Captioning is important not just for our children but also for their family members who will inevitably be involved to some extent in supervision of this learning. Family members may also be Deaf or Hard of Hearing. Alternatively, the children may be hearing and their whanau Deaf or Hard of Hearing.
• Please confirm that the new television channels will be fully captioned for Deaf and Hard of Hearing learners.
2. Please also confirm that “picture in picture” NZSL interpretation will be available on both channels. This interpretation should be provided by qualified New Zealand Sign Language Interpreters, preferably with experience in Educational Interpreting / Interpreting for Children. These interpreters could be Hearing or Deaf.
3. We note that the services are available in English and Maori medium. Will a channel be made available for NZSL direct instruction? New Zealand Sign Language is an official language of Aotearoa. Children for whom NZSL is their first language or where they are bi-modal/bi-lingual, will benefit greatly from instruction in their language.
4. We note that there will be an hour of Te Reo Māori broadcast daily on these pop-up channels. We would love to see an hour of NZSL offered daily.
This could be offered by service providers already partnered with the Ministry of Education including First Signs from Deaf Aotearoa and/or NZSL Specialist Teaching Services from the Deaf Education Centres. Alternatively the New Zealand Sign Language Teachers Association will be able to assist.
5. We note that the Ministry of Education is building up the resources it provides on the “Learning from Home” and “Ki te Ao Mārama” websites. Video resources contained on these sites also need to be properly captioned. Where key material is included, consideration should be given to NZSL interpretation.
6. We also take this opportunity to reinforce the importance of ensuring that all schools/kura and Te Kura provide fully accessible school materials and socialisations for Deaf and Hard of Hearing children. This includes but is not limited to traditional teaching, electronic media including video, zoom / google classroom and hangouts / Microsoft teams etc and social activities. We stress that “Automatic Captioning” is not adequate for educational purposes.
We appreciate that these are challenging times and that the Ministry must act with urgency. However, we wish to ensure that the services are fully accessible.
If we are able to be of any assistance, please do not hesitate to ask. We look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you and stay well in your bubble.
Yours faithfully
Dr Patricia Laing, President
Helen MacKay, Secretary
For and on behalf of
Wellington Association for Deaf Children
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