Page 133 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 13 February 2008
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is an extraordinarily difficult calling, and one that is underappreciated in the Australian education system even today. In looking at what makes a great education system and what are the elements of education systems that have stood the test of time, one of those elements is language teaching.
As an example, we have seen the emergence since the 1960s, and especially since its entry into the European Union, of what was called the “Celtic Tiger”—Ireland. One of the great elements of the emergence of Ireland as an economic giant in Europe has been its education system. In the 1960s, when Ireland had nothing, when it was a poor nation, one of the things it did was to decide that it would invest in education. It did not see education as a drain on the economy. It went out and borrowed money, built schools and invested in teacher training. One of the things it invested in was language teaching. Every child in Ireland must learn their native language; they must learn Irish Gaelic. In addition to that, other European language teaching is a high priority. It is a great testament to the Irish government that even when it was poor, in and out of seasons, successive Irish governments supported the policy of Jack Lynch in the early 1960s and they supported the education system. One of the reasons that Ireland is the country it is today is because of that investment in education.
About 18 months ago, there was an article in The Times about how Amazon Europe had closed down its operations in England and moved to Ireland. It was for one reason: the British population could not provide a source of graduates and staff who had a facility with a range of languages, and it could find that in Ireland—little Ireland. They made a contribution, and one of those contributions linked to education was language learning.
By contrast, let us turn to the ACT. Not every child in the ACT learns a language; not every child in the ACT even gets a snippet of exposure to languages. The government, in the supplementary budget, trumpeted their expenditure on language learning in the ACT. As someone who is very pro language learning, I can’t say that they should not have done it, but it is just so little that it is almost ineffective. Officials at the estimates hearings admitted that children in ACT primary schools will get one hour’s language teaching and children in high schools will get 1½ hours language teaching every week for the 40 weeks a year that they are at school. That is not enough.
Mr Barr: 2½.
MRS DUNNE: Did I say 1½?
Mr Barr: Yes.
MRS DUNNE: I stand corrected; it is 2½. But an hour in primary school is not enough. I will give an example of my own children, who had that experience. They learnt French from someone who was quite committed to teaching it, but they learnt it for an hour a week. My daughter went to high school and re-learnt in half a term what she had learnt for one hour a week for seven years in primary school. It is not enough.
Members will know that the Dunne family voted with their feet and supported the only government bilingual Italian school in this country. We were the first; we had the only government-funded bilingual Italian school in this country. As a mark of my
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