The Education Partnership Group met with Representatives of NCSE on the 3rd of May in St. Vincent’s Centre Drumcondra

This meeting took place as part of the NCSE consultative process in developing policy advice on the education of deaf/hard of hearing children. This advice is being prepared by the Council for submission to the Minister for Education and Skills.

The meeting was held to discuss the submission made by the Education Partnership Group to the NCSE Consultative Forum. Under the EPSEN Act, the Council is required to consult with its Consultative Forum in matters relating to its functions which includes the development of policy advice. The Forum is made up of representatives of the education stakeholders and people with a special interest in or knowledge relating to the education of children with disabilities. The Chairperson of the Consultative Forum attended the meeting.

The Education Partnership Group met before the meeting to discuss their approach to the meeting and decided to follow the structure of the paper already submitted by the group to the NCSE. It was agreed that Bernard Daly who had prepared notes for the group would begin the dialogue and especially focus on the outcomes agenda indicated by the NCSE in their correspondence. Some of the key points raised by the Education Partnership Group were;

The relationship between the recommendations emanating from the Marschark research report, the recommendations of the Advisory Committee as referred to in the Leeson report and the experienced based recommendations of the Education Partnership Group policy document. It is evident that all three coalesce well.
The important relationship between the Department of Education and the Department of Health since outcomes from the services provided by both impact significantly on both Departments and on the parents of Deaf children themselves. Welcome for the recent positive progression on neo natal screening.
Current information from DeafHear.ie from parents shows that the identification of Deafness is still way too late.
Need for the Department of Education to recognise the uniqueness of Deaf Education especially in respect of communication and the need for a different approach to policy on this basis.
Need for preschool work which has an even more profound impact than that already recognised by the Department in respect of children in disadvantaged communities.
An interesting discussion on the Centre for Deaf Education took place with a focus on the coordinating role, parents support and the provision of information from one source
The need for the various sections within the Department to share information was emphasised as was recognition of the Centre by the Department.
The need for the Centre to work with parents especially in terms of their understanding of the importance of language acquisition and in terms of meeting other parents.
The need for information to be distributed and available around the country.
The isolation of parents and indeed Deaf children in mainstream in particular.

Issues which arose during discussion included:

Centre for Deaf Education
Levels of competence required in ISL
Access for Deaf people to Colleges of Education
importance of sign language for all Deaf children from a communication and language development perspective
Liaison and collaboration between professional agencies, including sharing of information
Role of the Visiting Teacher Service

Coordinator of the Centre for Deaf Education

The Catholic Institute for Deaf People (CIDP) is delighted to announce the recruitment of Elizabeth Mathews as the Coordinator for a new Centre for Deaf Education. This new position offered on the basis of a two year contract will begin on the 1st of June 2011. Elizabeth will be located in the Marian buildings on the Rathoath road, Cabra, Dublin 7, contact details will follow. The Centre will be managed by the Education Partnership group comprising (CIDP, DeafHear.ie, the Irish Deaf Society, the Centre for Deaf Studies Trinity College) and is located in Cabra Dublin 7. The role of the Coordinator will be to build and expand the current Centre to become the place from which parents of Deaf children are supported and advised and can access the key professional, medical and educational services available to Deaf children.

Education Policy

The Educational Partnership Group comprising CIDP, Deaf Hear, IDS and the Centre for Deaf Studies Trinity College, agreed an education policy paper after consultation with the teachers of the Deaf in St. Joseph's and St. Mary's, the visiting teachers and teachers in mainstream schools which was submitted to the National Council for Special Education in June 2009.

The paper presents a new direction for Deaf education policy which will it is hoped be welcomed and implemented by the Department of Education and Science. It can be downloaded here The group in promoting this paper has met with the Department of Education and Health in April 2010 and the NCSE in June 2010, the Visiting Teachers Service in December 2010, the Teaching Council in October 2010 and met with the Presidents of the Teacher Training Colleges in January 2011. The group had an important meeting with the Minister for Education and Skills in January 2011. A meeting with the SESS also took place in January 2011. The group is conscious that the new Minister for Education will be making decisions regarding the policy direction on special education and Deaf education in particular following advice by the NCSE. The Partnership group has prepared a further briefing paper for the NCSE which is available for downloading and met with the Consultative Forum of the NCSE regarding this matter in April 2011. The group also met with the Department of Education regarding policy development in April 2011. The group has commissioned research on access to teacher training colleges by Deaf students and this was published in June 2011. Click here to view the proposal. Meeting with the Teaching Council, NCSE, CHoICE and NCCA and the Department of Education on this matter are currently taking place.

Deaf Education Conference 4th March 2010

The conference was organised and sponsored by the Catholic Institute for Deaf People (CIDP), DeafHear.ie, the Centre for Deaf Studies Trinity College Dublin and the Irish Deaf Society (IDS). The conference featured the launch by John Bosco Conama of a new Policy document designed by the above three organisations which set out a new future for Deaf education. The conference also featured a keynote presentation by Mark Marschark from the USA. Mark is regarded as one of the leading academic researcher's on Deaf education and is the author of the 2009 research advice paper on best practice in Deaf education for the National Council for Special Education (NCSE). There were also presentations from experts from the education and medical professions as well as current teachers and parents of Deaf children who reflected on their experiences of mainstream and Deaf schools. The presenters were both Deaf and hearing people and interpreters from Finland, Slovakia, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland were present on the day.

The conference venue was the Croke Park Conference Centre in Dublin and the attendance was 320 delegates which showed the high level of interest in the area. The programme for the day, papers presented at the Conference and the speedtext transcripts of the presenters and the open forum contributions are available via the speedtext transcripts below:

Presentation to Conference on the Future of Deaf Education in Ireland 4th March 2010
Transcripts from the 4th March 2010
Contribution of Cochlear Implants to Deaf Education - Jennifer Robertson and Rosemary O'Halpin
The Visiting Teacher Service for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing - Pat MacSitric
Conference on Deaf Education - Teresa Griffin
A Partnership Approach to the delivery of Education of Deaf and hard of hearing children - A Policy document - Dr. John Bosco Conama
The Future Education of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children in the Republic of Ireland - Sean Herlihy

Making the case for Irish Sign Language in Education

Click hereto read the article which appeared in the Irish Independent on this matter in early December.

Deaf Students Access to Primary Teacher Training Colleges

The key to enabling this access is the removal of the compulsory Irish Language qualification for admittance to Primary teacher training colleges and replacing it with ISL for Deaf students. The offer from Trinity College Centre for Deaf Studies to assess the competence of the ISL qualifications involved and to support its introduction as a full Leaving Certificate subject is welcomed.

There is a general recognition that the qualifying Deaf students at the end of the training would more than likely find placement mainly in the Deaf units attached to mainstream schools or in the specialist schools. The issue of a restricted qualification was discussed and the representatives from the Partnership group feel that this would be inappropriate since ISL would simply be replacing Irish. Also Boards of Management of mainstream hearing schools would take their own view as to the best candidate to fill any teaching vacancy. The Partnership group are pleased that the Teaching Council CEO was supportive of this change as was the Department of Education and Skills and the NCSE. The Teaching Council informed the group last week that it has now set up an Education subcommittee to examine the issue and make a recommendation to its Council.

The Presidents of the Teacher training colleges all agreed that the current situation was an anomaly and needed to be changed. They raised issues relating to how this would be technically achieved i.e. via a modified CAO or DARE application process, and how would the entry standard of ISL be assessed, what resources would be required within the colleges to accommodate the students and who would fund this, who would teach the to be designed ISL modules and assess competency etc. It was agreed that the Education Partnership group would prepare a technical paper setting out the process to enable access occur and once in place how it should operate with what supports and at what cost. The group have contracted Elizabeth Mathews to complete this work by the end of May 2011. Click here to view Elizabeth Mathews proposal.