Last Updated 10 October 2002.
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.
Site navigation
Change font size: 
