Deaf education - Lucas Magorigwa

The presenter from South Africa  Lucas Magorigwa is presenting on the deaf education situation in South Africa.

Although South Africa has achieved many things for Deaf people, the challenges in education in South Africa are still there. Since 1994 we have signficant achievements, such as access to education, SASL recognised, in service training is encouraged, deaf teachers are trained, and SASL interpreteres are made available.

The challenges that we face are that Deaf learners are not motivated. And the teachers, parents and public in general have low expectancies of the Deaf childe. We also do not have montoring system, in which we can see that what we planned is actually achieved

The presenter is scetching a scenario to clarify: there are many deaf students who do not complete schooling.. The higher the school level the higher the drop out rate is of the deaf students

Achieving quality education means that we need good school management, we need to involve parents in the education, we need to have high expectations, and the teachers need to be fluent in sign language. We need to be able to motiveate deaf learners to become deaf teachers, but we have not been successful in this so far.

Nelson Mandelao once said: "Education is the most powerful weapon to change the world." This means we need to use this for our deaf children.

When we look at the theme of the congress Global Deaf Renaissance (GDR), we can say that if we have::

• No quality education = No GDR
• No passion for the teaching profession = no GDR
• No fluency in SL = No GDR
• No postiivve role models = no GDR
• No positive thinking = no GDR

To move forward, we need to give deaf children role models and we need:postiive thinking. Because when we face a problem, we think we cannot win. Or if we think uniiversity is difficult, we cannot pass. So we need equality between deaf and hearing communities.

In conclusion the presenter states that GDR means:

• Quality deaf education
• Ending oppression of deaf people
• Standing up for ouselves
• Bulding a better life for all deaf people all over the world

"We can make a change,.we can make a difference"