Page 685 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 11 February 2009
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thank other colleagues for expressing their support for the motion and for raising a number of issues that I think it is appropriate I respond to in part and in full where I can.
In the first instance, I think it is worth acknowledging the significant effort that both the Department of Education and Training and Minister Hargreaves’s department have put into developing and enhancing language education in the territory. The work with the community sector in this area has been impressive to date. Most particularly, the level of consultation and the opportunity both at Minister Hargreaves’s multicultural forum last year and at the ACT Ethnic Schools Association’s open days to engage with community members in relation to this matter have been encouraging and I think set a good pathway forward for further expansion of language education, particularly in our schools, noting also that there are tremendous opportunities to engage better with the Ethnic Schools Association and, I might add, with embassies as we are very fortunate to have embassies located in this city. There is a great opportunity to partner with foreign governments to improve language education.
I would like to advise the Assembly that I think it is very pleasing that this year more ACT primary schools are able to offer language programs. I know we have had an extensive debate. Madam Assistant Speaker, you are one who has contributed to the amount of time that is available and dedicated to language programs within our school system.
So it is interesting to note, of course, that people always focus on mandatory minimums in this instance. It is not to say that, because there is a minimum amount of time that we mandate within the school curriculum, that is the only time that is devoted to language education or that is the maximum amount of time within the school curriculum that will be devoted to language study.
But I do note, as minister for education, that I often have discussions with school principals and teachers who say yes, they acknowledge the importance of language education but they are constantly being asked to crowd more and more into the school curriculum. Unless we are going to extend the number of hours in the school day or extend the number of weeks in the school year, there will always be intense competition, within the available time in a school term and within a school day, to fit many competing priorities.
I note, for example, that there are a number of matters within the parliamentary agreement with the Greens that require the school system to respond in an additional way, with either more resources or more time to be devoted to a particular activity. Learning to swim is an example. All of these matters compete for the available time within the school system.
That said, though, it is pleasing that more of our schools—and the public system, in particular—are able to offer a language other than English. We have seen, I think, 11 new language programs on offer in primary schools in the territory this year. I would note that the capacity to deliver such programs and to have specialist language teachers is also related to the size of primary schools. It is not possible for very small primary schools—for example, one that might have fewer than
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