[lg policy] Teach indigenous kids in mother tongue

[Dave Sayers]

http://www.skynews.com.au/national/article.aspx?id=795959

Teaching indigenous children in their mother tongue will help lift literacy rates and school
attendance, a federal parliamentary committee says.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Affairs committee has spent more than 12 months looking into
language learning in indigenous communities.

Its report, tabled in parliament on Monday, made 30 recommendations and called on federal, state and
territory governments to offer bilingual education programs from the earliest years of learning.

Committee chairman Shayne Neumann, a Labor backbencher, said it was 'crystal clear' bilingual
classrooms would improve school attendance.

'White Australia has dispossessed indigenous people of their land and of their language,' he told
reporters in Canberra.

Of an estimated 250 Australian indigenous languages, only 18 remain in 2012, Mr Neumann noted.

(Interesting political arguments, with somewhat emotive overtones, continue behind the link.)

http://www.skynews.com.au/national/article.aspx?id=795959



Dave

--
Dr. Dave Sayers
Honorary Research Fellow, Arts & Humanities, Swansea University
and Visiting Lecturer (2012-2013), Dept English, Åbo Akademi University
dave.sayers at cantab.net
http://swansea.academia.edu/DaveSayers
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