[lg policy] Australia: Dollars thwarted Hawke language policy

[Harold Schiffman]

Dollars thwarted Hawke language policy

   - Bernard Lane
   -  The Australian <http://www.theaustralian.com.au>
   - January 09, 2014 12:00AM


   -



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     [image: Joe Lo Bianco]

Australia's first national languages policy was based on the work of
Melbourne University's Joe Lo Bianco. Picture: Michael Potter.
*Source:*TheAustralian

* AUSTRALIA'S first national policy on languages had social as well as
economic aims. *

But Cabinet papers from 1987, released this month, tell the story of a
policy adopted at a time of tight public finances, and amid some scepticism.

Based on work by Melbourne University’s Joe Lo Bianco, the policy included
a balance between community languages and those of “economic and diplomatic
importance”, a boost to Asian studies, intensive English for migrants, work
on adult literacy, and support for Aboriginal languages.

“This government’s national languages policy is a concerted response to the
crisis in languages education in Australia, which is the result of many
years of neglect,” said a draft media release included in documents for Bob
Hawke’s Cabinet.

“Language learning and use are too closely related to Australia’s economic
development to allow languages to languish as a forgotten part of the
curriculum.”

The budget proposed in a background note was $20.17 million in 19877-88,
$36.4m in 1988-89, and $35.11m in 1989-90.

But Treasury said any new spending had to be offset by savings because the
“overall budgetary picture … allows no scope for net additions to
prospective outlays”.

And the Department of Industry, Technology and Commerce argued for a
“greater accent on economic objectives” in the new languages policy. Citing
the “pressing need” to improve Australia’s international competitiveness
and external account, the department urged that more money be spent on
“economic and diplomatic” languages at the expense of community languages.

Cabinet agreed to a $15m package to implement the policy, noting “it would
not be necessary to announce (initially) the mechanism for funding
community languages”.

In recent years, federal language policy has focused in a haphazard way on
Asian languages but has failed to arrest sharp declines in enrolments.

The Abbott administration has yet to say how it intends to deliver on an
election promise to have 40 per cent of Year 12 students taking a second
language within a decade. On the most recent estimates, the current figure
is about 12 per cent.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/dollars-thwarted-hawke-language-policy/story-e6frgcjx-1226797387028


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