By Henrietta Cook and Education Editor
A diplomatic stoush has erupted after a school in Melbourne's inner north axed the teaching of Greek and Italian – the languages commonly spoken in its community.
Parents have accused Northcote High School of trying to rebadge itself as an elite state school after it announced it would phase out the languages, but retain French and Chinese.
The Greek and Italian consuls-general have now intervened, urging the school to reconsider its decision.
In an unusual move, the officials are organising meetings with Education Minister James Merlino to express their concerns about the curriculum changes.
Families at Northcote High School are upset about the school's decision to phase out Italian and Greek. Credit: Jason South
Matthew Absalom, a parent at the school who works at the University of Melbourne's Italian studies program, said the decision made no sense.
"It's preposterous that Italian should be phased out in the inner north," he said.
He said there was no case for discontinuing the languages based on students' performance.
The school has achieved impressive language results in the VCE, with three students receiving study scores above 40 (out of a possible 50) in Italian last year.
Despite its transformation from a working class migrant suburb to a trendy hub of live music, cafes and expensive houses, Northcote is still home to many residents with Greek and Italian roots.
Around 15 per cent of its residents speak Greek and Italian, the two most commonly spoken languages in Darebin after English.
Students at the nearby Merri Creek, Northcote, Brunswick East and Brunswick South Primary Schools all learn Italian.
Mr Absalom said parents were not consulted about the controversial changes, which appeared to be part of a broader push to transform Northcote High into an elite government school.
"Schools that want to project an image of privilege tend to favour certain languages and Italian and Greek are not typically among them." The languages will no longer be offered to Year 7 students from next year.
Consul general of Italy Marco Maria Cerbo said he was concerned about the loss of opportunities for students.
"The school is in an area where a lot of people speak the language or deal with people from Italian backgrounds," he said.
"This decision was unexpected, particularly because the Italian program was so successful."
The Greek consul for Educational Affairs, Georgia Nikolaidou, said the decision to walk away from the languages was "flawed".
But principal Kate Morris said the school wanted to focus on Chinese and French.
"We are hearing the community feedback about our recent decision to phase out Greek and Italian languages so we can focus on Chinese and French – and we will be undertaking further consultation with our school community," she said.
The situation highlights broader concerns about the lack of continuity between the languages taught at primary and secondary schools.
The Education Department has been trying to address the issue by creating language networks, where clusters of schools offer the same language.
Students can also take up a large range of languages at the Victorian School of Languages and community language schools.
But continuity is not the "be and end all", according to Modern Language Teachers' Association of Victoria president Andrew Ferguson.
"The reality is, and will continue to be, that for various reasons students may not be able to continue a language from primary to secondary school," he said.
He said that even if students had to pick up a new language in high school, the language skills they learnt in primary school would be useful.
"They will take a broad range of transferable inter-cultural, language learning, literacy and thinking skills with them when starting a new language," he said.
An Education Department spokesman said the department was helping the school with its consultation.
Victoria has the highest proportion of students learning a language, other than English, in Australia.