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We, the Social Justice group at St John's Regional in Dandenong, Victoria, have discussed issues relating to children in detention centres in Australia. We make the following recommendations to your inquiry.

I taught a small group of students (approx.12) for 3 and a half weeks at Port Hedland Detention Centre during March 2002. I am a qualified secondary E.S.L. and English teacher and have taught since 1987. I've taught mainstream English up to Year 12 and E.S.L to European, Asian and Middle-Eastern students in Melbourne and Darwin and I've taught on Aboriginal communities and have some understanding of Primary curriculum and the needs of younger students. I hope you find the following information relevant.

My name is Katie Brosnan. I am a permanent resident of Australia and a citizen of Ireland. I qualified as a high school teacher in Ireland in 1995 with a bachelor’s degree in education. I have taught in Ireland, Poland and Australia in mainstream educational facilities as well as with marginalized groups e.g. refugees in Ireland, gypsies in Ireland.

The Commission is an national independent statutory body established under the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986. It has a President and five Commissioners. The five positions are currently held by three persons. Please refer to the organisational chart on page 16 for further information.

The Face the Facts education resource is designed to complement the material in the Commission's Face the Facts publication. First published in 1997, Face the Facts reflects the continued demand for accurate and easy to understand information about Indigenous peoples, migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.

The QTU beleives that refugee detention centres should be immediately closed down and replaced with the placement of all refugees in appropriate communities."

When I commenced writing this chapter in 2008, Australia did not have a national Indigenous languages policy. However in August 2009, for the first time in Australia’s history, the Commonwealth Government launched a strategy for preserving Indigenous languages: Indigenous Languages - A National Approach 2009 (National Approach). The National Approach sets out the Commonwealth Government’s plan to preserve Indigenous languages through targeted actions. They are:

The immigration status that results in the detention of children under Australian law also affects their entitlements to various services on release from detention, after they have been recognised as refugees. As discussed in Chapter 6 on Australia's Detention Policy, most children detained in immigration detention facilities for long periods are detained because they arrive in Australia without a visa (unauthorised arrivals). More than 90 per cent of those children are subsequently found to be refugees and are therefore released on temporary protection visas (TPVs).

This submission makes brief comment on the education of children in detention. It provides a more complete picture of the education services offered to these children by the Department of Education, Training and Employment in South Australia (hereafter the department) after they have been processed as refugees and released into the community. Note is also made of a group of children who have been sent to Adelaide as detainees in a place of alternative detention and also of recent discussions on the issue of children in detention being enrolled at Woomera Area School.

The Mercy Refugee Service is part of the relief and development cross-cultural work of the Institute of Sisters of Mercy Australia. Mercy Refugee Service is entrusted to serve without discrimination the uprooted and displaced people in our world. It was established in 1983 to respond to the plight of refugees in south-east Asia. At that time volunteers were called on to provide health care, education, social welfare and counselling support to refugees in camps in Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, the Philippines and in Cambodia.

"There have been times in our history when Australia has been generous and open hearted and times when it has been very mean. In 1938 at the Evian Conference about dealing with Jewish and other refugees from Hitler, Australia took a flint hearted position, saying that we did not want to import Europe's problems, or to increase racial differences, and that refugees should get back in the queue.

1. Introduction 2. Adequacy of current educational provision 3. Educational programs in NSW government schools 4. Temporary Protection Visa Holders enrolled in government schools. 5. Cost of educating child asylum seekers and students on temporary protection visas 6. Support for children and families who have been released from detention 7. Recommendations Appendix 1

As organisations with a strong commitment to social justice, and in particular to the education of young people, the Catholic Education Office, Diocese of Parramatta, and the Edmund Rice Centre, are most appreciative of the opportunity to make a submission to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission’s Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention.

This submission addresses some of the issues and questions raised in the background papers prepared by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) and in relation to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) and the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951) and its 1967 Protocol (the Refugee Convention). The conclusions drawn in this submission arise out of the experiences of staff and members of the Uniting Church in Australia. We do acknowledge that the evidence presented here is therefore anecdotal.

The Commission is a national independent statutory body established under the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986. It has a President and five Commissioners. The five positions are currently held by three persons.