Australia: Asia literacy: making a good policy better

[Harold Schiffman]

Asia literacy: making a good policy better
Author: Kent Anderson

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has made 'Asia Literacy' a key goal for his
government. I am one of the strongest supporters of this agenda.
Nevertheless, let me identify two significant issues that hamper our
current approach. First, Asia Literacy is a term that has to be
interpreted broadly. It is commonly given too restricted a meaning.
Doubtless the prime minister sees Asia literacy in its broadest
meaning but it is important that language alone, however critical,
will not make us an Asia literate nation.

On the language front, Asia Literacy in practice is represented by the
National Asian Languages and Studies in Schools Program
(NALSSP),essentially is a cheaper version of the Rudd-designed
National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools Program, or
NALSAS, that ran from 1994-2002. NALSSP will put $62.4 million over
three years into developing secondary teaching of Chinese, Japanese,
Indonesian, and Korean.

Targeting these four languages as priorities is a pretty good bet.
China is our largest trading partner; Japan is our largest export
market; Indonesia is our closest neighbour; and if you were going to
pick one country on which to take a punt Korea as our fourth largest
trading partner provides pretty good odds.

Focus on these four languages, however, may yield short term gains but
leave us exposed in the long term. On the one hand, few would have bet
economically on Japan in 1950, China in 1970, or India in 1980. On the
other, who would have predicted the need for Japanese speakers in
1930, Vietnamese speakers in 1950, or Arabic speakers in 2000. The
ability to predict economic rise beyond a decade is fraught at best
and the ability to predict crises is inherently the practice of a
nearly impossible art.

Because picking 'winners' and 'losers' is so difficult, allowing more
autonomy at the school level to select what best meets the local needs
may be the best way to go. A mixed approach of targeted languages and
local choices is another option. Under that scenario, my personal
advice to school principals is to consider the option of Hindi and
Tagalog along with Korean, and in light of our increasing engagement
with our Pacific neighbours, French and Spanish.

Asia literacy and NALSAS-type funding also has unnecessarily created a
vehement divide within the languages community. The European
languages, community languages, and world languages professionals have
seen the Rudd programs as coming directly at their expense. Whether
justified or not the targeting of Asian languages has left those
promoting and teaching the non-identified languages feeling that they
are likely to get less of a static pie.

This is problematic because successful implementation of NALSSP-type
policies requires support of the language programs in the local
departments of education as well as schools. Asking French teachers to
convert to teaching Indonesian may not be realistic in any event, and
it leaves much passive aggressive resistance within the system.

The second major issue of Asia Literacy is the non-language half. One
of the problems with promoting simply more languages generically is
that for a predominately mono-linguistic country, this can be
perceived as threatening as learning languages can be seen as 'too
hard', elite, and 'wog-ish'. A very reasonable response has been to
encourage the learning of 'Asian studies' in English, as well as Asian
languages, under the rubric of Asia Literacy.

Language without an understanding of the context in which it operates
is an empty vessel. Inclusion of Asian studies is critically important
as is relating language to other professional study. The risk is that
Asian studies is used to dumb-down Asia Literacy. Indian cookery is
substituted for an understanding of the Partition. The Beijing
Olympics is taught rather than the Cultural Revolution. Manga and
Anime substitute for The Tale of Genji and The Seven Samurai. And
generalist Asian and international studies courses contain no depth.

Don't misunderstand me: I think cookery, Olympics, and pop culture are
all things worthy of teaching, but just as we need to teach our
children about nutritious eating we also need to introduce them to
substantive Asian studies. Failure to get the English language portion
of Asia Literacy right will alienate both educators who need to find
the space within in a crowded curriculum and students who can pick a
bludge faster than you can say konnichi-wa.

It is in Australia's short- and long-term interest to be 'the most
Asia-literate country in the West'. NALSSP-type programs will help
achieve this. Less prescription on the languages covered and more
depth to the non-language Asian studies aspects will shorten the odds
of Asia Literacy delivering its promise.

http://eastasiaforum.org/2008/08/27/asia-literacy-making-a-good-policy-better/

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