In 2010, Monash University reintroduced Greek studies as part of the curriculum after a ten year long hiatus. It came after students from the university’s Hellenic Student Council rallied for the language to be taught. Despite the success of the Student Council, the first wave of enrollments only managed to draw 28 students.

Considering Victoria has a very significant Greek community and with Melbourne regarded as the world’s third largest Greek-populated city outside Athens and Thessaloniki, it should come as a surprise that not more students decided to study Greek at the university level. The argument to maintain support for the Greek language in the education sector is many and varied, but the common theme is that any language, Greek or otherwise, is the glue that bonds a culture with its people. The Greek government continues to provide support for the teaching and learning of Greek in Australia at no cost to schools.

The government, through the Education Office is helping to provide teachers from Greece to schools in Australia and New Zealand as language assistants, as well as provide resources, scholarships and student study tour information and seminars free of charge to students and teachers of Greek. But with the current state of Greek economy, the sustainability of such an education model is being questioned. Vasileios Gkokas , Consul of Educational Affairs for the Greek Consulate, says the demand for Greek to be taught in schools is as high as in previous years, with applications for requests of Greek language assistants and teachers being processed for ten public schools in Victoria from suburbs including Coburg and Westgarth.

“Last year we had 45 teachers and learning assistants come to Australia to teach in schools in Australia and New Zealand and we want to keep this number or even increase it,” Gkokas said. “But because of the current situation in Greece at the moment, this is getting difficult. The Greek government was going to send 21 more teachers here, but some of them have refused, because of the economic situation affecting them.”

Encouraging students to take up Greek at the tertiary level and learning the language beyond speaking it at home may be key to keeping the language going. This is what Dr Evangelina Laoutides hoped to do when she took charge of Modern Greek at Monash University’s School of Languages in 2010.

“Our role is to encourage them but also make them appreciate that because one is born to a Greek family or speaks a bit of Greek with the grandparents that does not mean they have the language under their belt. This is a common attitude problem that I personally face with those taking my unit in Classical Mythology: we all know a bit about Heracles, but studying his tradition at university level is not the same as reading the mythology book you got as a birthday present at 15.”

The Modern Greek department at Monash University has seen enrollments go up to almost 50 students since 2010. Clearly progress is slow, but the fact that a third of students come from non-Greek backgrounds shows the potential to attract not just Greek students, but the wider population. As for the future of education of the Greek language, it remains to be seen if the Greek government will continue its support of language programs in Australia.

At the moment, the Greek Consulate is also supporting universities introduce the language at the tertiary level. At the most basic level, however, educators agree that it is up to families and the community to encourage children to be acquainted with the Greek language and culture. It is perhaps useful to take a leaf out of the more ‘in demand’ languages. Dr Laoutides expressed the importance of portraying a relevant and up-to-date vision of Greece, and while it is necessary to be aware of the history of a language, studying the past has nothing to do with living in the past.

“I have never seen a course in Japanese advertised through a samurai! We must work on finding new ways, new points of reference to make Greek relevant to the new generation,” she said. “Students should love the language and the culture for what they are, then be given the opportunity to form opinions about past or current debates. At the end of the day, study at university level is also about critical thinking and being challenged.”