Evaluation of Australian Bilingual Education: Some initial ideas directed at obtaining a just and thorough approach
Abstract
In the 1973 parliamentary session, the Australian Federal Government introduced a
campaign to have Aboriginal children living in distinctive Aboriginal communities given their primary education in Aboriginal languages…and to supplement education for Aboriginal children with the teaching of traditional Aboriginal arts, crafts and skills mostly by Aboriginals themselves.
Following that announcement, a committee was formed to investigate the possibilities of bilingual education and to direct the setting up of some initial programs. Five schools originally changed to a bilingual education program, and the number has grown to almost twenty. The original schools have now been in operation for five years, and there is a call for their evaluation. The government has expended large sums of money on the development of the programs, but there is still discussion concerning their possible future. Some of the key issues concerning bilingual education in the Northern Territory have not been resolved, and much of the development of programs was taken over by people of initiative in individual schools. This may or may not have been a good thing, but for the purposes of evaluation, we are presented with a very complex and freely structured situation. A just and constructive evaluation of all that has happened thus far will be difficult but invaluable for the government, the administrators, and the teachers.
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