Policy playtime

First there was (and still is, if you move quickly) the Inquiry into language learning in Indigenous communities being held by the Australian House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, discussed here.

Then came the National Cultural Policy. This shouldn’t just be for visual and performing artists. It includes Cultural heritage of which they say:

In parallel with core arts and creative industries there will be a strong recognition of Australia’s cultural heritage, and in particular, Australia’s Indigenous culture which is the oldest living culture in the world. Australia’s Indigenous culture is unique, and comprises both dynamic, living systems and expressions which must be supported to develop, and endangered systems and expressions which must be protected and where possible, revived.

And now today, what the NT Government has decided to do about Indigenous languages in schools. They commissioned a report from the Menzies School of Health Research [pdf 2.6 mb].¹ The report deserves a serious reading and analysis. All I can say for the moment is that it doesn’t seem to distinguish clearly between programs in communities where the dominant language is the target language, and those in communities where it is not (as in many remote Indigenous communities). The initial conclusion seems to be that while mother tongue medium instruction may be good, well wouldn’t you know it, there aren’t the resources to run decent bilingual education programs in the NT schools (silence over how & why the resources were run down). What’s the answer? You guessed it, those communities can’t have bilingual education programs.

In communities where these circumstances do not prevail, the literature suggests that ‘English as a Second Language (ESL) strategies’ are the best approach to achieve improvement in student educational and language outcomes and to support community retention of Indigenous languages and culture – providing that they are delivered within a culturally responsive framework.

This may not have been the intention of the authors, but this is what the NT Government has made of it.

What ‘culturally responsive’ means to the Menzies researchers may be different from what it means to the NT Government. Their new ‘culturally responsive’ policy is “first four hours in English” in a frilly black, red and yellow skirt.

Frill No.1 The Department of Education and Training values home language and culture and will support communities in this endeavour through the use of school facilities after hours for cultural and language activities.
Somehow or other this is supposed to be part of EAL programs that are “inclusive of the students’ language and culture”
Newspeak: inclusive = exclusive

Frill No.2 Home language may be used to support quality teaching, including introducing concepts, across all year levels, particularly in the early years.
No mention of how they will ensure that Indigenous teachers have the support they need to explain the “quality teaching” – just that the schools need to “recruit and develop staff”.
Newspeak: quality teaching = all teaching?

Frill No.3 Oh, and you can seek special special approval from the Director of School Performance for in-school language activities (code for biliteracy, but it could be ANY language activity).
BUT the Director of School Performance can only approve it if the community can show that the School will jump through many many hoops:
Hoops:

• committed support from the community for this instructional approach in the initial years of school education.
• there is a sufficient number of instructionally and culturally competent staff to properly implement the approach
• the school‘s ethos and learning programs aim to promote positive and active representation of children‘s (and families‘) first language and cultural heritage.
• suitably adaptable and culturally responsive curriculum, teaching and learning resource materials are available or could be produced at reasonable cost.

You achieve this? Wait….

• the school leadership team is committed and able to take a proactive role in engaging community and family resources to support the approach.
• there is a commitment to professional support of the approach to the specific community/school.

A let-out for any principal who doesn’t want a bilingual program.

You wanna comment on this? They don’t want to hear from anyone except schools and their communities. But you could try anyway. And you could tell the Inquiry into language learning in Indigenous communities.

[ Update; I’ve just been alerted to [ Thanks Mary!] some highly relevant Garma Forum material on the Indigenous Stock Exchange. Quite a different take.

Jose Ramos Horta Address to Garma

Dhalulu Stubbs, The Importance of Family and Education

Wali Wunungmurra, The Disappointing Level of Support for Contemporary Yolngnu Education

Banbapuy Ganambarr, A Short History of Yolngu Education

Mick Gooda, The Importance of Rights

Galarrwuy Yunupingu: How Little Children Learn

Mp4 Highlights of the First Day of Garma

Jenny Macklin’s Opening Speech to Garma 2011]

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Notes

1. Oddly, the report doesn’t give the credentials of the authors; those that are googlable are not obviously experienced in primary education, in the study of languages or in applied linguistics.