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.
