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No evidence to back scrapping bilingual education: report
Monday, 29 June 2009
9:29:44 AM
By Tara Ravens
NORTHERN TERRITORY, June 29, 2009: There's no evidence to suggest scrapping bilingual education in the Northern Territory will result in better outcomes for Aboriginal students, a new report has found.
The report says the NT government policy undermines the rights of Indigenous people and is seen by many as a direct attack on culture and tradition.
Former NT education minister Marion Scrymgour announced early last year the first four hours of every school day had to be taught in English.
The policy - which affects the region's nine remaining bilingual schools - was to be in place by the first school term of 2009.
But an outpouring of dissent from teachers, politicians and parents prompted the government to back down.
It announced there would be a year's transition period and further consultation, with the changes to be fully implemented by 2010.
But some of Australia's leading bilingual educators and academics have called on the government to abandon its position entirely at a symposium organised by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) in Canberra on Friday.
"Young children learn best when taught through their mother tongue," said an AIATSIS report released to the conference.
"This commonsense principle has been supported by decades of research on bilingual education for children who don't speak the dominant language...
"This decision could spell the death of the remaining endangered Indigenous languages in Australia."
The report said the NT government decision ignored evidence that found bilingual education had significant "cognitive, societal and education benefits".
"It is deeply worrying that a policy could be introduced, which would so drastically affect first language speakers of Indigenous languages, without consultation with the affected families and communities," it said.
"It is equally concerning that the policy could be introduced without solid justification for its adoption and without indication as to how it would be implemented."
Ms Scrymgour quit the Labor Party earlier this month, voicing concerns with its approach to Indigenous policy. At the time she conceded she had failed to consult properly over the controversial bilingual policy.
"I have already publicly acknowledged, and I do so again, that I failed to properly explain the policy," she said on Friday.
But Ms Scrymgour said she did not regard the policy "as a mistake", and she said her aim was not to "destroy Aboriginal language and culture".
"From the earliest possible age, children should be spending quality time in front of a blackboard with words on it that are spelt in English," she said.
NT Education Department chief executive Gary Barnes said on Friday that the government was committed to its course of action.
"The earlier we can expose students to standard English in oral and written form the better it will be," he said.
But Ellie Gilbert, a spokesperson for Working group for Aboriginal Rights (WGAR), said the policy was not in line with the federal government's decision to adopt the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
"The declaration states that Indigenous peoples have the right to their own schools where Aboriginal students are instructed in their own languages and taught their own cultures," she said. - AAP
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