What’s New with IHC’s education

complaint to the Human Rights

Commission
April 2010
As you already know, on 31 July 2008 IHC lodged a complaint to the Human Rights
Commission about Government practices which result in discrimination for children with an
intellectual disability in their local school.
On 29 March IHC met with the Human Rights Commission, Crown Law and the Ministry of
Education to discuss the parameters within which mediation can take place. IHC’s complaint
alleges that the discrimination experienced by disabled children occurs as a result of a mix of
factors including education law, policies adopted by the Ministry of Education, practices both
at the Ministry and at individual school level and the omission to take coordinating steps to
achieve acceptable outcomes for all school students, regardless of disability.
IHC would like to thank all the parents, experts and schools who provided affidavits of their
experiences in support for the IHC complaint. These affidavits sat in front of Crown Law and
the Ministry of Education to represent the many participants IHC is representing in this case.
Crown Law and the Ministry of Education felt they understood IHC’s complaint better after
the meeting. Crown Law and the Ministry are now going to discuss and consider the issues
raised by IHC in the meeting and will notify IHC and the Human Rights Commission on their
preferred next steps.
For more information about participating, or for assistance with developing written accounts
of your experiences, please contact:
Laura O’ Donovan
IHC Advocate
PO Box 4155
Wellington
Tel: (04) 439 4782
laura.o’donovan@ihc.org.nz

The Review of Special Education

IHC is pleased that the Minister Heather Roy acknowledges the many issues with special
education in New Zealand and the need to ‘fix’ special education. Although this review does
focus on some similar issues to IHC’s complaint, and IHC submitted a response to the
discussion document, IHC would see its complaint action as having a more systemic
approach to change.

IHC advocacy consulted widely with members to prepare the organisation’s submission to
the Review of Special Education. Consultation meetings were held in Auckland, Whangarei,
Matamata, Wellington, Kapitii, Mana, Hutt Valley and Christchurch. We also received
comments from individuals who had read the review information posted on the IHC website.
 2

Thank you to everyone that provided feedback for IHC’s submission. You can read our final
submission on www.ihc.org.nz

Director of advocacy Trish Grant, advocate Laura O’Donovan and self advocate Duncan
Armstrong also gave an oral presentation of the submission on 22 March to the Associate
Minister for Education Hon Heather Roy.

The oral presentation summed up the key points from IHC’s submission, outlined the focus
group feedback and Duncan spoke of his experiences in mainstream education.

"The Minister was very impressed with IHC’s submission and especially impressed with our
direct consultation with young people on their views of inclusive education,” says Trish.

The Ministry of Education will now analyse all the feedback from the consultation process. A
summary of submissions will be put on online, though the details of those who made
submissions will remain confidential. The Ministry will take the summary of all the feedback,
other research, evidence and analysis and develop advice to the Government about the
future of special education provision. This advice will be provided to Government in the
middle of this year.

We hope that you will join us to address what has become a serious human rights issue for
one of the most vulnerable groups in New Zealand.

Yours sincerely

Trish Grant
Director of Advocacy