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Submission to the National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention from
the National Catholic Education Commission (NCEC)
The right to education and the responsibilities of government
Parents as the primary educators of their children
The National Catholic Education Commission (NCEC) is pleased to respond to your invitation of 21 December to make a submission to the HREOC inquiry into children in immigration detention. The NCEC is the official body appointed by and responsible to the Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference for developing, enunciating and acting upon policy at the national level for the Church's work in education.
The NCEC limits it submission to comments on the educational provision for children in immigration detention. While it makes no comment on the policy of detention itself, some of its comments do have practical implications for how the policy of detention is applied.
The right to education and the responsibilities of government
All people have the right to participate in the basic goods necessary for human flourishing, such as truth, knowledge, aesthetic experience, and friendship. These are the objects of formal education, which aims at the development of the whole person - intellectually, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and socially. Articles 28 and 29 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by Australia in December 1990, set out the rights of children to education. Governments have a responsibility to take measures to promote society's capacity to provide adequate opportunities for education, especially for children. This includes those children in Australia who, although neither citizens nor permanent residents of the nation, find themselves, by force of circumstance and government policy, in immigration detention.
Government has the responsibility to ensure adequate educational provision is made for children in immigration detention.
Parents as the primary educators of their children
Parents have the primary responsibility to ensure adequate education for their children, and therefore they have the right to make decisions about how their children are educated and to monitor their development. The involuntary separation of children from their parents for extended periods would mitigate against this.
Government policy should aim to keep families together while in immigration detention, and that requires ensuring living conditions that are conducive to the good health and well-being of children.
Catholic Education and children in immigration detention
Catholic schools are involved in a limited way in the educational provision of children in detention.
In Maribyrnong (Vic), St Margaret Mary's Primary School provided schooling for a small number of children from the detention centre during 2001. Children were accompanied to a and from school by staff from Australasian Correctional Management (ACM).
In Port Hedland (WA), St Cecilia's Catholic College is right across the road from the detention centre. During the 1990s, a Cambodian student attended the school on a regular basis. Since then, some students (always girls) have attended to do some specific subjects such as Home Economics. They attended normal classes and were accompanied for those sessions by ACM staff. In 2001, children from the Centre only attended for one-off activities not part of any regular programme, but nothing has taken place since August 2001. Sometimes the Centre has used some facilities such as the Kindergarten for their own purposes but not involving mixing with St Cecilia's students. Last year the principal was approached by the centre Director regarding the possibility of greater liaison with the College, but nothing has happened since. The centre has its own school and teachers. Currently the numbers of children of compulsory school age would be around 100.
In Woomera (SA), property owned by St Michael's parish is currently being leased by ACM and is used as an educational facility for children from the detention centre and from the housing trials in the local community. Though formerly a school run by the Church for local students, the property is no longer a Catholic school.
In Villawood (NSW), the principal of the local Catholic secondary school is investigating ways of providing appropriate learning materials, and the Catholic Education Office is planning a visit there in March with a view to formulating proposals for greater involvement.
The NCEC believes that the well-being of the children in immigration detention would be enhanced by active steps to increase the opportunities for education available to them from schools outside the detention centres. The mixing students from the centres with the regular students in schools would also be likely to have a positive effect on relationships between local communities and the centres.
Catholic education authorities have assisted and are assisting in the provision of education to children in immigration detention, and would consider proposals for greater involvement. The management of the centres should be encouraged to discuss the possibilities with local schools and diocesan authorities.
Long-term detention
NCEC believes that long-term detention is deleterious to the development of children intellectually, emotionally, physically, socially and spiritually. This is because in order to develop our capacities fully, which is the purpose of education, human beings need to be free to exercise those capacities, to have the opportunity of exploring and evaluating a wide range of experiences. Legal constraint of freedom for purposes other than incarceration for crime should therefore only be used as a temporary measure of last resort in extraordinary circumstances. Immigration detention, and the constraints on freedom it involves, should not become the norm. There is a danger of institutionalisation, where a person becomes so habituated - physically, emotionally and psychologically - to the rules and limitations of institutional life that they are unable to live effectively and independently in the less structured environment beyond the walls or wires of the institution.
Furthermore NCEC is concerned that the current conditions in some of the detention centres are not conducive to good learning. The emotional and psychological stress the situation places on both parents and children has a negative impact on educational outcomes. NCEC is particularly concerned about reports from paediatricians who have worked at Woomera that the conditions there are causing young children serious mental distress (see Attachment).
Long-term detention and the constraints on freedom it involves are deleterious to the education of young people. Government policy should aim to minimise the time spent in detention. NCEC believes that detention is prejudicial to the development of children.
NCEC would be willing to act as a contact between Catholic Education authorities and the Commonwealth in respect of improving the educational provision of children in detention.
Yours sincerely,
Rev.
T.M. Doyle
Chairman
15 March 2002
Last Updated 9 January 2003.
