Page 5023 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 28 November 2018
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languages builds a greater understanding of diversity and helps to strengthen our sense of cohesion and inclusion.
According to the 2016 census, there are over 105,000 people living in Canberra or over 26 per cent of the community, who were born overseas and over 80,000 people, or 22 per cent of the community, who speak a language other than English at home. For many of these people, continuing to learn about their language and culture is an important part of establishing their life in our city. For others, choosing to learn a second language opens the doors to greater understanding of culture and literature.
The ACT government welcomes the many diverse cultures and languages that contribute to our city. For this reason we provide funding to a range of programs that strengthen language learning. We do this in partnership with the ACT Community Language Schools Association. The association is the umbrella body for community-based language schools in the territory. There are a total of 52 language schools that are members of the association. The association has a significant role in protecting and promoting our cultural diversity by supporting and enhancing the operation of these schools.
Currently, these schools cater for over 2,500 students learning a raft of different community languages. Across our city, young people are learning to speak fluent Arabic, Bangla, Cantonese, Mandarin, Croatian, Dutch, Filipino, Finnish, Greek, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Tallinn, Karen, Khmer, Korean, Macedonian, Maori, Mon, Japanese, Persian, Polish, Punjabi, Russian, Samoan, Serbian, Sinhalese, Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Tongan, Vietnamese, just to name a few.
In 2018-19, 42 language schools and two playgroups applied for and received ACTÂ government funding. Almost $200,000 was invested as part of grant funding to support the valuable work of the language schools. In addition, 10 community language schools applied for grants under the 2017-18 multicultural participation grants round, receiving an additional $20,000 in funding.
One of the schools receiving funding was the Filipino Language School, which received $2,500 to participate in the National Multicultural Festival, present the Filipino language and cultural radio program and run the Philippine language month celebration. As part of the National Multicultural Festival, we have been working with the bilingual association to showcase and celebrate many of the languages that are spoken in Canberra. The festival brings together more speakers of more languages in one place than any other Canberra event in the year. It will no doubt be a fantastic demonstration of our diversity in 2019.
Of course, there are other supports that the ACT government provides, including bilingual story times at the Civic Library, language-related activities at the Children’s Sanctuary during National Multicultural Festival and other events throughout the year. This is all done in the context of promoting and facilitating mutual respect and understanding amongst culturally diverse communities.
The motion today focuses on the learning of languages other than English. However, for many new arrivals, learning English is key to their effective engagement in our
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