Don't cut off our tongues!

Australian actor Jack Thompson has joined the growing number of people 
throughout Australia who are campaigning against the NT Government's plans 
to scrap bilingual education.

He was one of scores of people at a workshop during the Garma Cultural 
Festival in north-east Arnhem Land in July who heard that remote 
communities were not asked what they thought of the programs before the 
decision was made to end them.

Bilingual education is basically learning and teaching in and through two 
languages. The general approach is that students are first taught literacy 
(reading and writing) in their first language, combined with a strong oral 
language foundation in English in the early years of schooling.

In many Aboriginal communities, children come to school with a strong oral 
language background in their first language and English is like a foreign 
language. Not everyone speaks it and daily life is conducted in the local 
Aboriginal language.

During 1998, about 47 percent of all Aboriginal students in remote 
Aboriginal community schools were enrolled in schools with bilingual 
education programs.

Gurrwun Yunupingu, a teacher at Yirrkala CEC School, told the audience that 
she was in tears when she found out the program was being phased out.

"It is very important to us. We don't want to phase it out", she said.

Ms Yunupingu said her own personal education journey began in 1974, the 
first year of the bilingual programs, and she quickly decided she wanted to 
be a teacher.

A strong supporter of the programs, she pointed out many of the benefits to 
the students of the "both ways" educational system.

"We also take them out to the bush — because we know there is a classroom 
out there too", she said.

Principal of Papunya School in Central Australia, Ms Diane deVere said many 
teachers and parents were "shattered" to hear about the end of the program, 
but it was perhaps not such a shock for the Top End, as many programs had 
already faced severe cutbacks.

"It is a known fact that we learn best in our first language and that the 
acquisition of a second language has many beneficial outcomes for 
learners", she said.

A paper produced by the Anangu Tjuta Nintirrikupayi Aboriginal Corporation 
in the Papunya Community states that the suggestion that Aboriginal 
students should be instructed in English only "generates a killing of the 
spirit in our students and leads to an education which is more about 
forgetting: forgetting your culture, your identity and values."

Mandawuy Yunupingu, former principal of the school at Yirrkala and another 
strong advocate of "both ways" education, explained that, while he had a 
conventional Western education "including reciting the Lords Prayer and 
saluting the flag", something different was happening at home.

"To have a pride in my culture was something I could learn at home. I 
leaned to sing it and dance it", he said.

"I wanted to go teaching and challenge white education. I knew there was a 
better way."

Many workshop participants asked how they could help in the campaign to 
save the bilingual education programs and were encouraged to write to their 
local politicians to indicate their concerns.

Actor Jack Thompson stated that he considered the scrapping of bilingual 
programs a crime and commented: "If they're going to strip bilingual 
studies, they might as well choke the children".

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Article from Land Rights News, paper of the Central and Northern 
Land Councils.