INDIGENOUS Members of the Community Have Welcomed

INDIGENOUS members of the community have welcomed the Federal Government’s recommendations to introduce bilingual education in schools to boost Aboriginal student attendance.

The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, chaired by Federal Member for Blair Shayne Neumann, last week hand down its report Our Land Our Languages: Language Learning in Indigenous Communities.

The report found only 18 of an estimated 250 Aboriginal languages were still spoken and were in danger of being wiped out in the next decade.

It recommended the need to urgently ensure their survival by teaching students whose first language was indigenous in their mother tongue, and an alternative NAPLAN method of testing.

But Mr Neumann took it a step further, calling for an Indigenous Language Learning Centre at Ipswich.

He said he would also like to see an indigenous language degree on offer at universities or TAFE in addition to other foreign language degrees.

“There are 136,000 people in the Blair electorate and 5300 are indigenous, according to the latest census,” Mr Neumann said.

“At Riverview State School 25% of students are indigenous. Most Ipswich high schools have indigenous populations of 10 to 15%.

“This is a very significant report for at least one in 10 people in our district. If adopted by the government it will make a huge difference.

“Our indigenous communities desire a reclamation and to revitalise their language.”

Inala Wangarra CEO Karla Brady said the proposal was well overdue.

“Anything that helps our young people know where they belong and feel valued is a great step,” Mrs Brady said.

“We’ve wanted this for so long and I think this is a wonderful opportunity for our children to recognise themselves everyday.”

Mrs Brady’s five children attend Hymba Yumba, an indigenous school at Springfield.

She said hearing her children sing traditional songs and do the dances brought tear to her eyes.

“Anything that can bring our people back to a feeling that they actually belong in the country that they were born to, if done respectfully, will be fantastic,” Mrs Brady said.

“You can say the word reconciliation, you can say sorry, but I think it’s time we see something from that.”

The Federal Government has six months to respond to the report, but Mrs Brady said the proposal would present some challenges if adopted.

“I am interested to know which languages would be taught because there are so many dialects,” she said. “That would be the challenge, and the way they gather that information.”

“People can be quite protective. If their language was taken away from them and they get it back, they want to keep it to themselves.”

Mr Neumann said the report also recommended the adoption of bilingual street names and landmarks in Queensland.

He said he would like to see an overall increase in funding to indigenous language support programs, on top of the current $10 million spent across the country each year.