North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has today called on the Welsh Government to act on calls for improved access to education and services in British Sign Language.
Mr Isherwood, who is himself a hearing-aid wearer, has this afternoon spoken in support of the petition submitted by ‘Deffo! Wales Deaf Youth Forum’ which calls for improved access for families to learn BSL; for British Sign Language to be added onto the National Curriculum; Improved access to education in BSL for children and young people, and for better access to Services in BSL such as Education, Health and Social Care, and Public Transport.
Speaking in the Debate on the Petitions Committee report: ‘To improve Access to Education and Services in British Sign Language’, he said:
“British Sign Language is the UK’s 4th indigenous language, recognised in its own right in 2003– and campaigners are calling for deaf BSL users to be seen as a language minority group.
“Currently there are deaf children in Wales in mainstream education with limited access to other deaf peers and communication support. As a result, they leave School at 16 with an average median reading age of nine.
“They often also have poor speech and lip-reading skills - which hasn’t changed since the 1970’s with failures in increased mainstream education only exacerbating this.
“Families have limited access to support groups and other similar families, and are unable to learn BSL unless they can afford the high costs involved.
“There is no opportunity for deaf children and young people, or their families, to learn their own language, BSL, or even to gain BSL qualifications until they are 16 years old when they leave School. They have missed out on important life skills, life changing conversations within the home and local / world wide news.
“Last month, the Education Minister announced that Modern. Foreign Languages were being included within International Languages in the new Curriculum – and that this would also include BSL. However, BSL is not a foreign language, it is indigenous!”
He added: “The National Deaf Children’s Society have stated that although they “appreciate that the structure of the new curriculum will facilitate the ability for schools to teach BSL on the new curriculum, they believe that the Welsh Government could take an active role in encouraging schools to pursue this option”:
“In response, Deffo Cymru stated that “the GCSE benefits only those in secondary school, whereas learning from nursery will prepare all of those who access BSL for a future GCSE or indeed the current system of Qualifications for BSL”.
“Although they welcome the Education Minister’s vision for seeing languages taught in schools, they express concern that this is the choice of the school, not the child “to enable them to improve access to learning, further education, social skills, leisure pursuits, employment and life fulfilment”.
Mr Isherwood referred to his recent visit to the TCC – Together Creating Communities - Group at St Christopher’s School Wrexham, to discuss their work exploring whether Wales could follow Scotland’s lead in implementing BSL into the curriculum.
He said: “Deaf constituents in North Wales have emailed ‘deaf people who I am advocating for are suffering throughout Wales and many are in mental health crisis’ – adding that ‘The British Deaf Association is very much at the forefront of pushing for legal recognition of BSL in Wales, and is asking local authorities and public services to sign up to their Charter for BSL and make five pledges to improve access and rights for Deaf BSL users. Presently, only two of the local authorities in Wales have signed up’.
Mr Isherwood also spoke of the fact that last October he called on the Welsh Government to respond to the calls for BSL Legislation in Wales made at the North Wales ‘Lend Me Your Ears 2018’ Conference, looking at Scotland’s 2015 BSL Act.
He said: “Without specific rights-based legislation, the Welsh Government’s generic legislation is going nowhere.”
