[lg policy] Australia: NSW Auditor-General Grant Hehir says shortfall of teachers for Asian language studies

Thu Nov 14 16:11:11 UTC 2013

Auditor-General Grant Hehir says shortfall of teachers for Asian language
studies
DateNovember 14, 2013

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[image: Anna Patty] <http://www.watoday.com.au/national/by/Anna-Patty>
Anna Patty <http://www.watoday.com.au/national/by/Anna-Patty>State
Political Reporter

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[image: Children in year three participate in a multi lingual lesson.]

Lacking language teachers: NSW schools are missing out on the chance to
study a continuous course of Asian languages due to the low numbers of
language qualified teachers. *Photo: Brendan Esposito*

NSW is short of more than 2500 teachers to provide students with a
continuous course in Asian languages from kindergarten to year 12.

The Auditor-General Grant Hehir has reported on NSW's progress in the
national Australia in the Asian Century policy introduced by the Gillard
government.

The policy aims to provide all Australian students with the chance to study
an Asian language throughout their school years by 2025.

However, the audit released on Wednesday showed there are not enough
qualified teachers to deliver the policy, which identifies Chinese
(Mandarin), Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese and Korean as priority languages.
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''The department advises the delivery of a face-to-face Asian language
program to students, kindergarten to year 12, for two hours per week at a
ratio of 250 students per teacher, would require approximately 3000
full-time equivalent teachers,'' the Auditor-General's report said. ''The
department currently has 479 permanent qualified teachers of Asian
languages.''

Figures from the NSW Department of Education showed that of 726,870 public
school students in kindergarten to year 12, just 71,343 were learning an
Asian language in 2011.

Only 17 students studied Hindi for the HSC exams last year and none was
taught at school. A total of 15,177 students in kindergarten to year 10
studied community-run language programs in 2011.

''Under the National Asian Languages and Studies in Schools Program in NSW,
20 teachers qualified as teachers of an Asian language, and another 40 will
graduate next year,'' a spokesman for the department said.

The federal Department of Education last year said there were just 3000
teachers across the country teaching Asian languages in schools.

Read more:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/auditorgeneral-grant-hehir-says-shortfall-of-teachers-for-asian-language-studies-20131113-2xgtd.html#ixzz2kdXyWb00
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