Contents Foreword 5 Acknowledgements 7 Executive summary 8 Recommendations 14 1 Background information 17 2 Education 30 3 The rights of deaf people to access communication, 4 information and services through NZSL 50  romoting and maintaining NZSL as an official P language of New Zealand 74 Appendix 1 Terms of reference for the NZ Sign Language Inquiry 90 Appendix 2 NZSL interpreter support available through the Ministry of Health’s contract with Deaf Aotearoa NZ 91 Appendix 3 List of abbreviations 92 Endnotes 94 3