Deputy Opposition Leader
Julie Bishop has
said that she will push to have this plan made coalition policy
before the next federal election. Another bold plan proposed that is
bound to cause trouble for state education departments, teachers,
parents and students. I look forward to seeing what transpires. Asian
language should be mandatory for Australian schoolchildren
Other
articles of interest. Language
study shuts up
NSW
Education Department statistics;
- 43% drop in students studying languages in the last 15 years
- There has been a drop of 50,000 students studying Japanese since 1996
- Less than 9% of this years Year 12 students in NSW will sit a language exam
- NSW students are only required to study 100 hours of a language in years 7 or 8
While
the Victorian Government has plans to make a second language
compulsory for all students from prep to year 10 by 2015. Our
kids to learn new lingo
If
the number of students does not increase Australian student will fall
behind international education standards. Generations of Australians
will not have skills to develop business, political and economic
relationships with Asia. Without government intervention language
learning will further decline.
Alarming
and disturbing news indeed. I wonder if we have reached rock bottom
yet.
Something
to balance all the negative reports I have been blogging recently A
feel good story can be found here. Teacher's
leadership in languages applauded However, reading this
carefully there is sound advice and warnings about current langauge
learning in schools.
Meanwhile
in Sweden. 'Every
school must teach Chinese' Go Sweden Go!
Not being a parent of Australian school kids, I am in no position to comment on the compulsory nature of the proposed policy. But emphasis on Asian languages seems to be a global trend. Here in the United States, Asian languages are being integrated more and more into school curricula (although not mandatory) and into college admission processes. For example, the Advanced Placement (AP) Test program began offering Japanese in 2006 and Chinese in 2007, whereas the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) program has been offering Japanese, Chinese and Korean tests since the 1990’s.
ReplyDeleteIts obvious that this second language should be mandatory in Australian education.
ReplyDelete