Press Release: Ngukurr community fighting for their languages to be taught in their school (fwd)

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Ngukurr community fighting for their languages
to be taught in their school

Members of Ngukurr community in Southern Arnhem Land, Northern Territory
(NT), Australia, are working towards having six of the community’s
traditional Aboriginal languages taught in the local school.  However,
even with strong community support, finding funding to have their
languages taught in their own school is proving difficult.

“The N.T. Education Department has Aboriginal Language and Culture in
its curriculum framework, but this is the only part of the curriculum
that has no compulsory funding”, says Greg Dickson, a Ngukurr-based
linguist working for the Katherine Regional Aboriginal Language Centre.
 “This is a real shame because it means communities find it hard to
implement language classes in their schools, even when the community
support and infrastructure is already there.”

The people of Ngukurr community look back to around nine distinct
Aboriginal languages.  One of them, Warndarrang, has already died out
and most of the others are highly endangered.  Only two of them,
Nunggubuyu and Ritharrngu (or Wagilak), are being passed onto children,
but that is happening in other communities. At Ngukurr, children grow up
speaking Kriol.

“Other communities in the region have ‘two-way’ education, where
traditional languages have a strong place in the school.  But at
Ngukurr the situation is difficult because we have a lot of languages
and a lot of them are endangered.  But this doesn’t mean Ngukurr
children should be deprived of the opportunity to learn their own
languages in the school”, Mr Dickson said.

Community member and language worker at the Ngukurr Language Centre,
Godfrey Blitner, has been gathering community support by holding
meetings with Elders and speakers from each language group, “Having
language in school is important because it helps kids keep their
identity. Kids learn about their country and it helps them understand
language and culture. People in the community are really interested to
do the work, but there is always something in the way.”

Ngukurr school has a school council but the Federal government took away
any economic power the school council has at the end of 2004 by winding
up ASSPA (Aboriginal Student Support and Parent Awareness) funding.
That funding must now be accessed through a grant application process
and the community has no say over which applications will be
successful.

Money is allocated towards Language in Schools through the NT Education
Department, but those decisions are not made until mid-year.  “This is
no help to people here at Ngukurr who are ready to teach their
languages now”, Mr Dickson said. Committee member of Ngukurr Language
Centre, Eddie Chisholm, argues, “Kids in city schools can choose to
learn Japanese, Indonesian or German.  Our kids should have the same
opportunity to learn their own languages.”

Staff Contact: Robin Hodgson, Co-ordinator.  08 8971 1233
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