[EDLING:199] Australia: Bilingual school waits for clear answer on future

[Francis M. Hult]

The Canberra Times

Bilingual school waits for clear answer on future

Parents at Australia's only Italian-English bilingual public school remain in 
the dark about the program's future six months after the Government announced 
changes to its status.
Students at Lyons Primary School learn half their curriculum in Italian under 
the language immersion program, which employs both English and Italian-speaking 
teachers.

However, under the Government's "Towards 2020" education strategy, Lyons will 
become an early childhood annex of Curtin Primary in 2009, and the bilingual 
immersion program will be moved to another Canberra school, which has yet to be 
decided.

Parents at the school have expressed concern about moving the bilingual 
program, which has been developed at Lyons Primary over four years.

Lisa Ranshaw, whose daughter attends the school, said most parents wanted to 
know how the bilingual program would be integrated into a new school site.

"Those are the kind of questions we have, because you can't just take a 
bilingual immersion program and just drop it on another school," she said.

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