Language skills poor in 40pc of APY children

ALMOST 40 per cent of children in South Australia's remote Aboriginal lands do not speak English well, or at all.

Stewart Lewis

ALMOST 40 per cent of children in South Australia's remote Aboriginal lands do not speak English well, or at all, prompting calls for better language support in schools. The figure is revealed in census data which shows 225 children of the 600 under the age of 14 there are not proficient in English.

Despite several government reports stressing the need for better English tuition in classrooms, only 6 per cent of teachers in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands have qualifications for teaching English as a second language.

John Guenther, a research leader for the Co-operative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation, said many remote students were struggling with English as a foreign language, on top of myriad social issues.

"It is a complex issue that is faced by teachers and students, and families generally," he said.

"It makes it more complicated when you have students who are not immersed in English the way they would be in a city English as a second language situation." Once poor attendance rates in comunity schools were taken into account, many children had only about 15 hours' exposure a week to an English-speaking environment.

Dr Guenther said the problem was compounded by the fact that many students in remote communities were not literate in their first languages of Pitjantjatjara or Yankunytjatjara either.

His research was aimed at finding out what was required to boost engagement with education in remote communities.

The Mullighan report of 2008 into sexual abuse in the APY Lands said literacy, numeracy and writing in English was critical for the reporting of sexual abuse, and called for better resources for educators.

In 2008, a government-commissioned report said students were being failed by the school system in remote areas.

The paper singled out the need for tutors on the lands with skills in English language teaching.

Brian Gleeson, the co-ordinator-general for remote indigenous services, also identified the need for more teachers trained in ESL in his most recent report, released last month.

At the Ernabella Anangu Child Parent Centre, community development officer Meredith Clark said children such as Stewart Lewis were exposed to English at an early age.

"They are good at absorbing English at that age," she said.

"We hope that when they get to school, rather than going into reception and seeing English for the first time, they have actually had five years of learning English as well as their own language."