Address by Senator Gareth Evans, Minister for Foreign Affairs, to the Catholic Education Office, 17 March 1995
I am afraid that my presence here to talk to you on the theme of Asian studies in school, and in particular Asian language study, is really a little fraudulent. We had to choose, at my school, right back in Year 7, between studying Latin, French and German, and the Latin teacher, as I recollect, was a little younger and prettier than the others... Latin was a rigorous enough intellectual discipline and continuing it up to first year university did some useful things for my vocabulary and appreciation of language structure, but it didn't do much for my ability to communicate with anyone actually living. As for Asian Studies, the closest I think we got at school was the Ottoman Empire!
Of course, I mastered some survival Japanese during my first overseas trip spent travelling around Japan in the mid-1960s as a backpacker - words like 'konnichi-wa", "domo arigato gozaimasu" "do itashimashite", and other essentials like "soba", "yakitori" and "sushi". And over subsequent years I acquired a bit of survival Mandarin and Bahasa and Hindi as well: just as well I didn't need much to survive on in my 20s!
But I really do regret not properly having learnt a living language in school and in particular not learning an Asian language: I think my experience as Foreign Minister would have been certainly that much richer had I done so.
But all that said, I was very pleased to accept your invitation to launch the Victorian Catholic Schools Strategic Plan. First, because the Plan provides an imaginative and professional - not to mention timely - approach to the teaching of Asian languages and Asian Studies in Victoria's Catholic Schools. And secondly, because it is based on a fundamental recognition about the future of Australia - that we have to have an education strategy to squarely meet the needs of Australians present and future to better communicate with, understand, and be involved with our Asian regional neighbours.
It is becoming almost a glib statement these days to talk of Australia's engagement with our own East Asian or Asia Pacific region. But among those of you in the audience of my or earlier generations, there will, I think, be an appreciation that it is - relatively - a recent concept, and that it has only really become a firmly-rooted part of our national consciousness and integral element of our national government policy-making over the last dozen years or so.
[VI/95]
For the present Government, the policy of engagement with the region has been based on a very sound appreciation of the international facts of life. It reflects the fundamental shift of world economic activity to the Asia Pacific, the high and sustained growth rates in the region and the rapid growth of markets for goods and services we can supply in the region.
We in this Government now recognise - and I think over the last decade we have largely brought the wider Australian community to now recognise, unashamedly and unselfconsciously - that the Asia Pacific, and the East Asian hemisphere in particular, is our region, where we live and where our future lies. This neighbourhood is where we must find our security and where we can best guarantee our prosperity.
APEC - or the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation arrangement, which Australia initiated in 1989 - is the most important economic manifestation for us of this reality. The eighteen APEC economies between us already account for almost half of the world's trade and more than half of its production - and APEC is designed to ensure that this region continues to be a major engine for world economic growth and prosperity.
In addition, the Government's policy of engagement with the Asia Pacific reflects an appreciation that as a middle-sized, independent power, Australia needs to take responsibility for security issues and to seize - indeed create - opportunities for building our own security through cooperative approaches in the region.
Last year the inaugural meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum - a grouping in which Australia again played a significant part in forming - brought together for the first time the eighteen major security players of the region to begin a multilateral dialogue aimed at creating a new cooperative security environment in the region - the idea being to build trust and confidence through a variety of cooperative strategies, including military cooperation programs, information exchanges, the development of preventive diplomacy processes and inter-governmental cooperation in mounting UN peace keeping operations.
As these two new regional institutions take shape - APEC and the ARF respectively - I believe we are seeing the gradual emergence to reality of the idea of a true Asia Pacific community.
And if we are to become a really integral part of this community we need to know more about the region, more about its history and politics and economics, and more about its cultures and languages.
It's not just a matter of the direct benefits that flow; there are indirect benefits as well. Because the rest of the world is increasingly focusing on Asia, we can position ourselves as a major resource - an Asia-literate bridge if you like - between the rest of the English speaking, and other non-Asian language speaking, world and Asia.
That is the external policy dimension that provides sound reasons for the Australian Government's policy approach. But there are just as strong reasons to do with domestic, internal considerations - to do with us, and what it means to be an Australian today. To be an Australian today it is increasingly likely that you will either have an Asian background, or be coming up against other Australians who do - and it is increasingly important, in understanding each other, that we understand more about what that background means.
Nearly one quarter of Australians were born overseas; approximately 23 per cent were either born in a non-English speaking country or have at least one parent from such a country; at least 17 per cent speak a language other than English at home. And an increasing proportion of these Australians are Asian Australians.
The numbers are small at the moment: of the total permanent Australian population, 3-4 per cent are presently of Asian extraction. But in 10-15 years the figure will be closer to 7-8 per cent of the population; in another generation, perhaps more than 10 per cent. Add to that, the transient Asian population numbering hundreds of thousands at any one time - students, business people, tourists - and one thing becomes clear: we are simply no longer a monolithic European culture.
While older generations of Australians were less knowledgeable about Asia and Asians than they might have been, the effects of Asian immigration and the systematic efforts of government in recent years - and of organisations such as the Catholic Education Office - to introduce Asian language study and Asian studies into the curriculum of young Australians, has been beginning to have a dramatic impact.
The increasing emphasis on the importance of the study of Asian languages and Asian Studies in our education system has already, I believe, played an important role in the transformation of the national consciousness about Asia which is now under way.
It has been contributing to a sea-change in the attitudes of young Australians - by turning the unfamiliar into the familiar, by changing perceived fears and threats into perceived opportunities, by allowing young Australians to grow up informed and curious about the part of the world that we live in, knowledgeable about how our regional neighbours view us, and comfortable with the notion of where we fit into the regional scheme of things.
By igniting this interest in and curiosity about the countries and languages of our region, this teaching has stimulated further and deeper interest: the study of Asia and Asian languages develops its own momentum, which in turn feeds into, and flows into, all aspects of our lives - business, government, culture and leisure.
We - through the efforts and commitment of organisations such as the Catholic Education Office - have certainly come a long way. We have done a lot. But we can do better. Still more attention needs to be given to increasing the numbers of Australians with Asian language skills, familiarity with Asian culture, and practical awareness of how to do business with Asia.
The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Working Group on Asian Languages and Cultures Report, Asian Languages and Australia's Economic Future - published in 1994 revealed that Australians were not learning languages fast enough to fill the demand in the community for Asian-literate Australians. In response to the Report, the National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools Strategy (or NALSAS for short) was developed in 1994, to be implemented over the next ten years, to introduce Asian languages and studies in all schools systems. The four languages targeted, in line with my Department's forecasting of what will be of most importance to Australia, are Japanese, Indonesian, Korean and Mandarin.
All in all, the Government has committed $67.7 million over the next four years to fund the NALSA strategy. The aim is that by the year 2006, at least 25 per cent of year 12 students will be learning a language other than English. Of this, 15 per cent will be learning one of the targeted Asian languages. In the same time frame, it is expected that at least 60 per cent of year 10 students will be studying one of the targeted Asian languages. The $67.7 million allocation will also include a strong component focused on Asian Studies in Australian schools - both as a companion to, and as an alternative, to Asian Language study.
Of course these efforts will naturally take time to have their full impact. But we are already seeing results, and there is no better example of this than in my own Department - the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. For a start, fully 24 per cent of our officers were born overseas or born in Australia of non-Australian-born parents; that's way above already the Public Service target for the year 2000 of 15 per cent. I keep bumping into Asian faces around the corridors in my Department - people with names like Phong Bui, Bobo Lo, Analine Ho, Zuli Chudori, Jimmy Kwong and Chulee Vo-Van. And it's terrific for my Department and terrific for Australia that that should be so.
Bringing with them the insights born of their own unique cultural upbringing and experiences, these officers broaden the information, experience and cultural instinct base upon which our foreign and trade policy is generated, developed and practised. We have found from practical experience that officials with country-expertise and language skills - whether or not they actually originate from the country in question - can understand more reliably and quickly the cultural and political psychology of the environment in which they are working. It also ensures that the Department reflects better the diversity of the Australian community, and is, therefore, better equipped to advance Australia's national interests.
It is a testament to the success of the approach to Asian studies and Asian language studies of the Commonwealth Government - and of bodies like the Catholic Education Office - that most recent Departmental recruits, not just again those with an Asian background, join the Department already fluent in an Asian language, and fully familiar with the history, politics, economics and culture of one or more Asian countries.
And this story is being replicated in government departments, workplaces, and in the community all over Australia.
The Victorian Catholic Schools Strategic Plan is yet another example of your progressive and innovative thinking in these matters.
The Catholic Education sector has a well-deserved and long-standing reputation for excellence in the teaching of Asian languages and studies. Three Melbourne Catholic schools have been teaching Indonesian for at least 20 years and currently 50 out of 66 Melbourne Catholic Secondary schools are teaching Asian languages.
The Strategic Plan, I have to say, is an ambitious and broadly-based document. I applaud it wholeheartedly and it deserves every support it can get. It is imaginative, innovative, and very hands-on. Just to pick up a few of Strategy's elements; it aims:
- to create an inventory of "best practice" models that identifies successful teaching and learning practices, resources and materials, and to distribute these to individuals and networks involved in the implementation of the studies of Asia and Asian languages;
- inform careers personnel of the opportunities for students to use in their Asia-related skills in work experience placements;
- to assist school communities to recognise the fundamental link between languages and cultures; and
- to monitor post-school destinations of students from language courses in order to determine the impact of the studies on their career choices.
I am especially impressed by its focus on continuous improvement and evaluation - using the experience of teachers and past students to constantly improve and adjust the program, ensure that the program is going to equip students with real skills and knowledge that they will be able to employ in future careers and the desire to collaborate with the wider community (including business) to add value to the courses available,
In my view, it is very much a 'best practice' guide to how a curriculum on Asian language and Asian studies should be developed and refined.
My genuine congratulations are extended to all those involved in the development of the Strategy. I hope that the state school system in Victoria, and other school systems around Australia, are able to learn from your experience and your new plans, in making their curricula as forward-looking as yours.