Page 1531 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 6 June 2007
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Canberra already has a proud reputation with bilingual education, through longstanding arrangements instituted by the commonwealth government and the French government in relation to Telopea Park, which is a school which has a fine national and international reputation. I have said in this place and elsewhere to anyone who cares to listen that, if Lyons primary school were given a chance, it would be for the Italian bilingual system what Telopea is for the French.
As an advocate for language teaching, I think that it is an opportunity this government may pass by. It would pass by because the future of the bilingual program at Lyons primary school is uncertain—not the future of Lyons primary school, just the future of the program. The government wants to turn the school into a P-2 school. Although I am open to persuasion about the value of P-2 schools, I still am sceptical. I have not heard anyone outside the education bureaucracy who has a good word to say for it, and most parents think that it is impractical.
The real problem, which this government has not faced, is this: if it turns Lyons into a P-2 school, what will it do with the bilingual program? It says, “We will find another home for it.” But if it goes to another school—just pick a school, any school: Torrens, Duffy, Garran or any of the schools in that area—what will happen? It will become a stream inside a bigger school. The problem with that is that it will become an elite thing. It will be a thing for “bright” children.
Lyons primary school is a school of great equity, with children from a vast array of socioeconomic backgrounds—people who live in the suburb, people who travel long distances to come to that school because of what it does and what it is beginning to do very well. If the program goes to another school, it will become an opt-in and therefore an elitist thing. That will be the death knell of bilingual Italian education in the ACT.
Between now and when the government makes up its mind about what to do with the Italian bilingual program, I will spend my time advocating that they keep the school at Lyons doing what they have been doing well for the last three years. Give it a chance. Give it five years. In five years time, if they have not increased their enrolments, all of the parents will say, “Yes, okay, we have not done it well enough,” and will walk away. But do not kill the Lyons bilingual Italian immersion program before it has a chance to succeed in the same way as the French immersion program has succeeded at Telopea. This is what the parents are saying to me—parents who, for instance, drive 70 kilometres a day to take their children to that school because they value language education. It is not some elitist thing. These are not the brightest of the bright. These are just our kids.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
The Assembly adjourned at 6.28 pm.
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