Page 5845 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 7 December 2011
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The issue of funding ESL support in schools is critical for our multicultural community, as many children from diverse backgrounds are growing up in homes where languages other than English are spoken and they are learning English as an additional, or second language. Many children have English competency which is well below the one which is needed for successful learning in the English-medium school system. And for many children, school is the only place where systemic teaching of ESL can occur. We know at present we have increased numbers of children with very high ESL learning needs, and those needs persist ... when they enter mainstream schools.
But the cutback in support services is not the only problem in ESL issues in the ACT. As the motion highlights, only 55 per cent of ESL students in need of assistance receive any ESL funding. Given this government’s proud boast about numeracy and literacy levels among ACT public schools, it is interesting to note that an average non-ESL student is regarded as being proficient in English at level 4 on the ACT’s official 0-5 measure of English language proficiency.
But funding for ESL learners cuts out when they reach a rating of only 1.75, leaving a proficiency gap of 2.25. This continued lowering of the official English language proficiency ratings that attract ESL funding has been a concern to ESL teachers for some time and, in fact, it was the subject of recommendations in the report of the education, training and youth affairs standing committee in its inquiry into the educational gap in the ACT in May 2010.
The government at the time agreed with the recommendation that any program or initiative developed in the ESL area should be undertaken in consultation with ESL teachers. But it did not happen here. The standing committee’s findings also identified the need for a review of the funding model, with “particular attention to the capacity of the model to meet the needs of the broader group of students identified in the profile review”. It also recommended a review of what sort of support students might need.
The minister chose to not support either of those recommendations. So we have, 18 months later, a system that is still underfunded, a minister that claims it is well resourced and a growing number of students who will continue to achieve at less than optimum because the system needs an overhaul and the government thinks that pilot programs, strategy papers and deckchair shuffling will suffice.
The Canberra multicultural forum wrote to the minister for education in November highlighting their concerns on this issue and the cutbacks to ESL positions. They called on him, as Treasurer, to ensure that funding to the ETD enables both the ESL executive officer positions to be retained and that English proficiency levels that attract ESL support be raised to a level that more realistically reflects the level of need identified in government school classrooms. So we also have the multicultural forum decrying the decision.
But if the ESL teachers think they might turn to the Minister for Multicultural Affairs for support, they are going to be sadly disappointed. When Minister Burch was questioned on this issue last week she was not aware of the problem and was reluctant
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