Page 5016 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 28 November 2018
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Mandarin Chinese, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Modern Greek and Spanish.
In 2019 and 2020 the Australian government has committed to also support the development and implementation of apps in Korean, Vietnamese, Turkish and German. This will fully align the ELLA suite of languages with the languages in the Australian curriculum which children can study in later years.
We have a directorate policy that talks about the compulsory teaching of languages in schools, we have evidence that at least 25 government preschools and several non-government preschools also are offering a start at a foreign language through the play-based language program supported by the Australian government and we have a pathway plan that is designed to provide a language pathway for children through primary and high schools to college. Why does this ACT government not follow its own rhetoric into action?
This is where the train starts to become derailed. For a start, according to the government’s own information there were six primary schools last year that had no language program at all. And where you live plays a major part in what language might be available. I know from recent constituent correspondence that if you do not live in Yarralumla but have an Italian background, speak the language at home and want your child to attend Yarralumla specifically for its bilingual Italian program because it is the only school in the ACT that provides that, you have to fight and plead with the authorities to make an exemption for you.
If Indonesian is your language of choice you are okay if you live in the priority enrolment area for Turner Primary School and Lyneham High School because you can start at Turner primary and go all the way through to college with that language.
But if it is Mandarin Chinese you want to study, tough luck, because while you can study it at Dickson College it is only available in primary school at four different locations, none of them within the same catchment as Dickson College. You would have to go to Melba, Copland, Melrose or Canberra High if you wanted to continue. That is hardly what one would call a considered pathway plan.
At Kingsford Smith you can start Mandarin Chinese in preschool and go through to year 8 and then pick it up again at Hawker College in Year 11. I am not sure what you do for years 9 and 10. And of course if you do not live in Higgins or Holt you are not in the priority enrolment area for the preschool, and for years 6 to 10 you must live in Dunlop, Higgins, Holt, Latham or Macgregor. Bear in mind that Mandarin Chinese is the language spoken by more people in the world than any other and the foreign language most spoken in ACT homes. China is our largest trading partner and the importance of proficient Chinese as a highly desirable skill is not in dispute.
Let us take Korean as another example. You can study it at only one government school, Gold Creek, and for only one year, in year 3, and then pick it up again, say, at Gungahlin, Narrabundah or Lake Tuggeranong colleges; nothing in the early education years and nothing in year 4 all the way through until year 11.
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