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Commission Website: National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention


This statement was provided by Inese Petersons to the National Inquiry

into Children in Immigration Detention


STATUTORY DECLARATION

I, Inese Petersons

of [address removed], Teacher, do solemnly and sincerely declare as

follows:

BACKGROUND

1. I am registered

as a teacher in South Australia [number removed] and hold a Batchelor

of Education specialising in Junior Primary/Primary education. These

are my understandings and opinions based on my observations and experiences

in Woomera IRPC.

2. In April 2001

I had an interview for a teaching position at the Woomera Immigration

Reception and Processing Centre ('the Centre'). I was subsequently

offered a three month contract which began on 21 May 2001. I have

not been back to the Centre since, although I do have permission to

visit there on 8 and 9 July 2002.

THREE MONTH

CONTRACT

3. When I arrived

at the Centre there were approximately three hundred children. The

number of teaching staff varied during my contracted time at the Centre:

three teachers in week one, two teachers in weeks two and three, three

teachers for weeks four to six, four teachers in week seven and five

teachers in weeks eight to ten. During the period when we had five

teachers, only two were registered primary teachers in South Australia.

4. The minimal

or proposed contact hours a teacher had with any one particular class

during the week was between four to five hours per week. Timetables

were adjusted almost weekly. My timetable for teaching was as follows:


Mon - Thu 9-10 Un-Accompanied

Minors (UAMs) and prepubescent boys

10-11 UAMs and pubescent

teen boys

11-12 UAMs and 13-17

yr old girls

12-1 Lunch
1-2 Meetings/Housekeeping/Prep
2-3 UAMs

& Teens mixed class

3-4 UAMs

& Teens mixed class

4-5 Special Focus

Group - Oscar Compound

Fri 9-12 Assistant

Teacher's Training

12-1 Lunch
1-2 Visiting Case

File UAMs/Students/Collecting Case File Data

2-3 UAMs

& Teens mixed class

3-4

UAMs

& Teens mixed class

4-5 Special Focus

Group - Oscar Compound


5. The children were never "forced" to attend classes: attendance

was rarely promoted or encouraged except by the teachers themselves.

Probably between sixty to seventy percent of the teenage children

attended my classes.

6. We received

no extra assistance from Australasian Correctional Management ('ACM'),

the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs and Indigenous

Affairs ('DIMIA') or from any state or federal education department

in the provision of education for the children in the Centre.

7. In August

2001 I rang the South Australian Education Department and the Australian

Education Union ('AEU') to advise them that there was something that

needed to be done with regard to the provision of education in the

Centre. The AEU told me the matter was not within their jurisdiction.

The South Australian Education Department said they were not able

to intervene as it was a 'non-Government' school.

8. There were

some educational materials at the Centre but not enough proper English

as a Second Language textbooks or any curriculum information. What

little we had was cobbled together from previous teachers who had

taught at the Centre. There were some supporting materials for Maths

and English.

9. Programs Management

advised me that their photocopying had increased excessively and had

gone above their allocation range after my arrival because I presented

all of my students with hard copies of information for them to read

and write on (if they could).

10. I was not

aware of any formal educational assessments conducted by either ACM/DIMIA

or the teachers of children when they arrived at the Centre. The only

assessments that teachers were able to make, were whether a child

could read/write in his/her own language and/or English.

11. It was very

difficult to keep running records of the students' progress. Given

the constantly fluctuating number of students, the contact time per

class and the constant movement of children between the compounds,

the only way I could tell whether a new student was in the class,

or a previous student had left, was by calling the roll. We were never

advised of changes to children's accommodation arrangements, arrivals

or departures. I kept a record of what subject area I had been teaching

and to what group. I could only assess learning outcomes based on

the progress made by a whole class and not by an individual. The only

individual records I kept were whatever I could keep in my head.

12. The children

were not given any record of their education when they left the Centre.

For the first six weeks of my time at the Centre we were given no

warning when any of the children were leaving. I did attempt to see

most of the students who were released on Tuesday and Thursday mornings,

but often they left so early that I missed them. I sometimes gave

the students a little certificate of achievement and noted on the

back that 'this child has attended the Woomera IRPC and has been studying

……', but I could only do this a couple of times.

13. All of the

children at the Centre I considered as having learning difficulties

given their environmental and psychological states. There were several

students that the teachers identified as suffering post-traumatic

psychological problems. I referred some hearing and visually impaired

children and those with severe depression problems to the doctor.

To the best of my knowledge none of the children I referred were ever

treated by a specialist for their impairments.

RECOMMENDATIONS

14. There should

be different classes for different levels of ability, but given the

diverse range of educational experiences it would be virtually impossible

to address all the people at their own level. There needs to be different

levels for beginners, intermediate and advanced as well as two streams:

one for those with English and another for those without English,

supported by intermediary teaching in the detainees' own languages.

15. My first

preference would be for all students to be given access to local schools

including the High School and TAFE. I think that it is crucial that

there is some continuity of teaching and learning in a formal educational

setting. There would also be need for support from specialist ESL

teachers.

16. A secondary

option would be to build a purpose-built education compound within

the Centre. This was an option that was proposed by ACM management

in July 2001, and despite several days of work on the proposal by

the teachers, the option was never realised.

17. The third

option, and the least-favoured one, is to turn one of the existing

compounds into an exclusive education facility.

18. With all

three options it is crucial that staffing numbers are increased. The

South Australian Education Department informed me that their recommended

ratio for staffing was twenty-five students per teacher. This means

that at the time I was at the Centre we should have had at least ten

teachers just for the children.

19. When I asked

Programs Management to consider increasing the number of teachers

available to teach the children, they responded that under the guidelines

we were only entitled to one teacher for every three hundred detainees,

and that due to fluctuations in the number of detainees we could currently

have no more than five teachers. I was asked 'What would we do with

the teachers when the number of detainees drops?' I responded that

we could then make more classes: they looked at me blankly.


20. It is imperative that the education takes place outside the living

space of the children: another compound, a purpose-built school, or

another place altogether.

21. It is my

opinion that what the Centre Management provides in terms of education

for the children, and in fact all students, falls extremely short

of what is proposed within the DIMIA guide-lines. Any child can come

to school on any day, but the conditions and numbers of the classes

and the lack of resources both material and human, are 99% short of

what is adequate and generally available to children in the wider

Australian community.


I make this solemn declaration by virtue of the Statutory Declarations

Act 1959 as amended and subject to the penalties provided by that Act

for the making of false statements in statutory declarations, conscientiously

believing the statements contained in this declaration to be true in

every particular.

This statement

was signed in Adelaide on 2 July 2002.

 

Last

Updated 10 October 2002.