Learning a new tongue tied to funding

SCHOOL pupils have been promised the opportunity to pursue one of four Asian priority languages from primary school through to high school.

Sinead Maguire

SCHOOL pupils have been promised the opportunity to pursue one of four Asian priority languages from primary school through to high school, laying the foundation for future generations to have greater engagement with Asia.

Launching the Asia white paper in Sydney, Julia Gillard said this unbroken access to a language as students moved up and changed schools would be a condition for states seeking federal funding under the Gonski education reforms.

"We are doing something far more systemic than layering an Asian languages program on top of what happens in schools," the Prime Minister said.

"We are going to make our national school funding reforms . . . following the report of David Gonski . . . contingent on this goal of Asian languages."

Asia Education Foundation executive director Kathe Kirby said the link between uninterrupted language access and Gonski funding was vital, as was the white paper's emphasis on measuring the change in the Asia skills and knowledge of pupils.

Adelaide University Asia expert Kent Anderson said he was "really impressed" by how the paper "mainstreams a lot of the conversations that we've been having in Asian studies and the languages area".

"For me, the white paper is not about the money; this is about setting the direction for (budgets over) the next 10 to 20 years."

The paper endorses the national curriculum idea that study of Asia should take place not just in language class but across subjects.

"Only a small proportion of Year 12 students study anything about Asia in the subjects of history, literature, geography, economics, politics and the arts under existing state-based curriculums," the paper says.

It rolls out the National Broadband Network as an education device at a time when small enrolment courses are unviable and teacher supply weak.

"You can get kids to study a language even though their teacher is in another part of Australia, so this gives us a huge capability we haven't had in the past, " the Prime Minister said.

The paper says the NBN will connect schools with sister institutions in Asia, as well as help universities increase enrolments in Asian studies and languages courses. Some of these courses are vulnerable to closure under a funding model driven by student choice, but Ms Gillard said universities would increase supply if corporate Australia led the way.

"I'm asking the boardrooms of this country to send a very clear signal (to students) -- if you want to join us in this boardroom tomorrow, then you will have to bring (these Asia-relevant skills)," she said.

The paper breaks with almost 30 years of national language policy by adopting Hindi, an official language of India, as one of four priority Asian languages. Hindi replaces Korean, a stronger language in our current education system, and joins Chinese, Japanese and Indonesian.

"The selection of priority languages reflects those nations where the majority of opportunities will be available to Australians in the Asian century," the paper says.

University of Western Australia arts dean Krishna Sen said the switch to Hindi was odd, since a marker of the Indian middle class pursued by the white paper was the ability to speak English.

She said Australia had a comparative advantage in Korean studies.

University of Melbourne language policy expert Joe Lo Bianco said the adoption of Hindi was "obviously influenced by the Prime Minister's recent trip to India".

"In terms of geopolitical strength it makes a lot of sense," he said.

The white paper dismisses two Asian language school programs closely associated with former prime minister Kevin Rudd, saying these were among a host of initiatives with "limited, localised success".

"(They) have not produced a significant cohort of young Australians completing secondary education with deep knowledge of our region or high levels of proficiency in Asian languages," the paper says.

In the white paper, the government promises "more financial support" for university students keen to do some of their program in Asia, as it seeks to "substantially boost" the number of students forging academic and personal links with the region.

University of Sydney student Sinead Maguire said her semester of study in Yogyakarta, the cultural capital of Java in Indonesia, had given her a personal take on geopolitics.

"Now, I really get it -- why it is so important for Australia to have a strong relationship with Indonesia," Ms Maguire said.

Lifelong personal ties, as much as formal learning, underlie the white paper's case for more young Australians to venture into the region.

The US and Europe are more popular than Asia as destinations for students who do some of their university study abroad.

"A developing country is so much more interesting; there is such rapid change," Ms Maguire said.

Her immersion study at the University of Gadjah Mada was organised by the Murdoch University-hosted Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesian Studies. The white paper singles out ACICIS as a successful model.

Ms Maguire returned from her ACICIS program with more than a score of new Indonesian friends, and a grasp of Indonesia's cultural subtleties, as well as sharper language skills.