An Auslan curriculum will soon be rolled out in Australian schools.

Auslan - the language of the deaf community in Australia - was officially recognised as a language by the Federal Government in 1987, but its use for teaching in schools has been largely inconsistent.

Now, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) has officially published its first curriculum in Auslan.

“The publication of the Auslan curriculum reflects the importance of Auslan in Australia,” said ACARA CEO, Robert Randall.

“The development of this curriculum involved collaboration between members of the Deaf community, including organisations, community members, educators, Auslan teachers and leading academics.

The program has two main goals: allowing children to access education in and about their language, and giving hearing children a chance to learn to communicate in Auslan.

Dr Breda Carty, from the Royal Institute of Deaf and Blind Children (RIDBC) Renwick Centre, helped write the curriculum.

She described it as a “wonderful development”, especially given the cruel and degrading treatment deaf students had suffered in the past.

“For so many years, for a very long time, deaf people and their sign language was marginalised — sometimes forbidden — at school, and so for older deaf people you hear many stories about how their hands were tied behind their back, they had to sit on their hands, and they were punished for using sign language at school,” she told reporters.

Dr Carty referenced quote published in the curriculum's overview from the late Nola Colefax OAM, a deaf elder.

“When I was a school student, we were punished for using our sign language. I remember writing 100 times: ‘I must not sign’,” Ms Colefax wrote.

“It makes me so happy to see that young people today are encouraged to learn Auslan, and to be proud of it.”