Ideas@TheCentre
The Asian languages non-problem
The rise of Asia has led commentators like Greg Sheridan, the foreign editor of The Australian, to raise concerns about Australia’s ability to speak Asian languages.
Following the lead of the likes of Sheridan, both the government and the opposition have pledged to improve Australia’s Asia literacy. The Coalition has even proposed new language education programs reportedly worth $1 billion, with the goal of having 40% of Year 12 students studying a language other than English.
Before deciding that we need to teach more Australian students Asian languages, we need to examine the place that Languages Other Than English (LOTE) already have in Australian schools, and consider the spread of English in Asia and the rest of the world.
Studying a second language is compulsory in the most populous states and territories with over 75% of Australia’s population, and optional language classes are offered in the remaining jurisdictions.
Although Asian languages are not taught in every school that teaches LOTE, key Asian languages, including Chinese, Indonesian and Japanese, are offered in all states and territories.
State and territory LOTE programs will hardly make the nation fluent in Asian languages. In NSW, for example, the compulsory LOTE program only requires 100 hours of instruction.
However, this is not cause for concern.
There are approximately 2 billion English speakers worldwide, and English is the international language of a host of specialised fields, including academia, air traffic control, and diplomacy. By 2050, half of the world’s population is expected to be proficient in English.
English is also an Asian language in both a demographic and official sense. Asia has approximately 800 million English speakers, and English is an official language of major regional economic and military powers (India) and dynamic global commercial hubs (Singapore).
English is not just Australia’s national language; it is also the lingua franca of Asia and the rest of the world. Implementing Asian languages education programs worth potentially billions of dollars would therefore be an overreaction to a non-problem.
Benjamin Herscovitch is a Policy Analyst at The Centre for Independent Studies. He will be delivering a Meet the Researcher lecture on language policy in the Asian Century next Tuesday, 10 July at 6pm. To register, please click here.
