Page 3853 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 25 August 2010
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schools in the ACT. These schools would ideally run from kindergarten to year 12, as Telopea Park does, and could benefit from a diverse funding arrangement so that the cost of providing adequately trained teachers does not fall solely on the ACT government.
As a European language is the focus of our only bilingual program, at Telopea, we could investigate the possibility of developing K-12 bilingual schools focused on a Japanese-English or Mandarin-English curriculum. Japan and China are Australia’s largest trading partners and are likely to remain so in the foreseeable future. Developing students with fluency in these languages will bolster our capacity to further grow these two key trading relationships.
These languages also reflect the ACT’s current sister city relationships, which would inevitably facilitate student and teacher exchanges with greater ease. Japan and China are important strategic partners that will play a role in shaping Australia’s future. As we already have a strong bilingual program for English-French language education, bilingual schools reflecting our commercial and strategic priorities provide an appropriate balance.
I believe that further bilingual schools would be popular in the electorate. The catchment area could include Canberrans who recognise the value of learning a foreign language. It would also appeal to Canberrans who have a linguistic background consistent with the school’s curriculum and who wish their children to develop or maintain proficiency in their mother languages.
An increasing number of children in the ACT come from families where parents may have different mother tongues and wish to see their children develop in a way that reflects this family background. Such bilingual schools could also appeal to Canberrans who see vocational opportunities for their bilingual graduates in the future and wish to offer their children this advantage. I do not doubt that there would be a significant number of parents who would see merit in broadening their children’s horizons in an international environment.
As I noted earlier, applications for entry into Telopea Park primary school are currently double the positions available. I have little doubt that there is sufficient demand to warrant an investigation of the potential for further bilingual schools. The success of the Chinese preschool and infant school in Mawson is an indication that a natural catchment area exists in the ACT for a Mandarin-English K-12 program.
However, I understand that several embassies of Spanish-speaking countries have communicated an interest in contributing to the development of a Spanish-English bilingual school. This is another potential avenue well worth investigating, although it should be noted that no funds have been committed at this point. The Spanish-speaking embassies have a strong presence in the ACT, and proficiency in the Spanish language would allow Canberrans to converse with a global Spanish-speaking population of over 500 million people.
In asking the ACT government to investigate the availability of developing possibly two further bilingual schools, I acknowledge the need to identify additional funding
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