Page 5025 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 28 November 2018
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primary, secondary, tertiary, and vocational education and greater coordination across those sectors.
We know we should continue to develop the ACT as a university city as part of the knowledge economy and that we should be taking full advantage of the opportunities this affords our local school children. As Minister Berry’s signature future of education strategy extends forward over 10 years it only makes sense to have language education more fully considered in that plan.
That said, I join Ms Lee in hoping to see more specific details of this and other important items more clearly articulated in the implementation plan. I have no disagreement with the comments Ms Lee made in her opening remarks in setting the scene in the sense that we want an opportunity for our students to learn a second or maybe even a third language. I have spent my share of time living overseas in countries where it is not uncommon for people to speak two, three, four or sometimes five languages.
I come from that not uncommon but particularly Australian thing of speaking only English, having had no or very limited exposure to other languages, and I think that that is a shortcoming. I speak a little bit of broken Dutch, but I would not describe myself as a Dutch speaker; that would be an insult to the language. It is something I wish I had had better exposure to and it is something we should give our students an opportunity to learn.
The challenge as Australians is which language you choose. The discussion has been about the eight priority languages identified, but as Ms Lee noted in her remarks you could easily add a number of other significant languages to that list in the context of both those who have immigrated to Australia and those with whom this country needs strategic and cultural connections.
I agree with the thrust of this. I will be supporting Minister Berry’s amendment. It acknowledges the substance of the issues Ms Lee has raised; quite a bit of the language in the calls on section in Ms Lee’s motion is repeated. As the future of education document moves from the current level—direction setting, aspirational and indicating where we are heading—into the specifics I am keen to see more detail fleshed out on how languages will play an important part of that.
As Ms Berry’s amendment notes, the education strategy highlights the importance of students learning to participate effectively and respectfully in a diverse society. It talks about diversity in all its forms and that is the area where languages could be included. One might look back with hindsight and say perhaps it should have been more explicit but those things are always easier to observe in hindsight.
We will be supporting the amendment with the clear expectation that this issue will be elaborated more explicitly with the opportunity for students to learn a second, third or fourth language if they are so inclined and capable, as some students are. I would really like to see that opportunity for ACT students delivered better in our schools.
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