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The current position

The Scottish Government has long recognised that Deaf people face a number of barriers to becoming full and equal members of Scottish society. In 2000, the Government set up the BSL and Linguistic Access Working Group. The working group consists of representatives from D/deaf organisations and government officials.

(D/deaf organisations – work with one specific group of deaf people, for example Deafblind people, or Deaf BSL users, or people who are Deafened (have acquired hearing loss) or people who are Hard of Hearing , or work with all deaf people.)

The remit of the group is to develop a strategy for improving linguistic access for deaf people in Scotland; to raise awareness of deaf issues among policy makers, professionals, service providers, deaf people and the general public; to consider how best to support BSL and D/deaf awareness; and to consider how best to support education and training provision in BSL, deaf studies and linguistic access.

In February 2009, the Scottish Government published a report from the Working Group – Scoping Study: Linguistic Access to Education for Deaf Pupils and Students in Scotland. This scoping study looked at all aspects of how Deaf pupils and students get on within the education system in Scotland. One of the aspects that was looked at was “the risk of isolation in mainstream situations”.

“In many cases a deaf child may be the only deaf child in a class – or in a school. There were examples of schools making good efforts to include individual deaf pupils – particularly at primary stage (for example assemblies on topics related to deafness; pupils and staff undertaking BSL qualifications).” –

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/02/11155449/11

In August 2009, the Working Group published a report called “The Long and Winding Road – A Roadmap to British Sign Language & Linguistic Access in Scotland.” –

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/07/01102537/0

While it is acknowledged that “the roadmap cannot hope to address all aspects of access for deaf people living in Scotland…it does outline many of the major issues and points to some of the ways towards improvement, particularly in public policy.” The Roadmap also states:

“The working group has a robust vision of what needs to be in place to improve linguistic access for deaf and deafblind people and it maintains a determined focus of deploying resources towards long term aims. It envisages a world where deaf people would be automatically afforded the same life chances as their fellow citizens. In such a world:

- families with deaf babies would be supported to meet the linguistic needs of their child at the appropriate age;

- deaf pupils would have the same school attainments as their peers;

- BSL would be offered as an educational tool for deaf pupils who prefer it;

- pupils could study BSL and Deaf culture as a curriculum subject, from primary school through to university;

- all public services would be deaf and deafblind aware;

- deaf and deafblind people would be provided with timely information;

- information would always be provided in a range of accessible formats;

- the implications of deafness would be understood and valued by society.”

The “Creating Linguistic Access for Scotland” report written by SASLI in 2002, states that:

“Currently deaf people do not have full linguistic access to any single area of life outside of their own community. Their opportunity to be included in such key areas as education, employment, social work services, the justice system, health and medical services is greatly diminished by the lack of linguistic access and the ignorance and discrimination inherent in these systems. While it is unlikely that personnel in any of these areas actively wish to discriminate against deaf people, their lack of knowledge of the linguistic requirements of deaf people may make such discrimination inevitable.”

The position in Scotland in 2009 is still the same as it was in 2002 for deaf BSL users –

http://www.ssc.education.ed.ac.uk/resources/deaf/sasli/intro.html