The campaign to bring back Greek to Wales Street Primary School has been given a boost this week, with Victorian Education Minister Bronwyn Pike stepping in to see if there is sufficient interest to re-introduce Modern Greek next year.

It seems to reflect what we were saying, that the process, as managed by the school, was flawed to say the least.

“The Department will be working with the school and the Greek Community to conduct a second survey to consider the re-introduction of a Greek Language program in 2011,” a spokesperson from the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, told Neos Kosmos.

“This second survey will be conducted in the knowledge that additional funds are available to support the program.”

Last month, local members Jenny Mikakos and Fiona Richardson secured funding for Modern Greek to coexist with Italian as part of the school’s Languages Other Than English (LOTE) program, but the school council refused the funding.

Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria board member Theo Markos, who has been campaigning for the reintroduction of Greek, said he spoke with Ms Pike last week, who assured him the department wanted the process to be over as soon as possible.

He told Neos Kosmos the department was hoping to secure a consultant to design the survey, which would include information about the funding offer, by the end of the week.

“Our hopes are that be end of November, early December, we’ll have a result,” he said.

Wales Street parent Angelo Dritsas said most of the other parents he’d spoken to saw this as a positive outcome.

“It seems to reflect what we were saying, that the process, as managed by the school, was flawed to say the least,” he said.

Mr Dritsas said he thought there would be enough interest to reinstate Greek, because there were 212 students enrolled when the program finished at the end of 2009, and the school’s population has since grown.

“The past survey indicated that 29% of the school population would like to see the Greek language program,” he said.

“That indicates to me that there are parents who would like their children to drop Italian and pick up Greek.”

But Wales Street Primary School Principal, Chris Sexton, said he’d received no official communication from the department apart from a telephone call from the department last Friday.

“The regional manager rang me and said he thought there was going to be some kind of survey or something, and I said “well, what does that mean, and he said ‘I don’t quite know at the moment,’ and I haven’t herd anything since,” he said.

Mr Sexton said the situation was “highly unusual” and he didn’t know what the process would be should the survey find the school does actually want to reinstate Modern Greek.

He added that, in the past, finding a teacher for Modern Greek had been difficult.

“I’ve found it quite challenging in the past finding a Greek teacher, and I’ve had to advertise positions a number of times,” he said.

Theo Markos told Neos Kosmos that, should the program be reinstated, it was the school’s responsibility to find a teacher, but added that the GOCMV were happy to help.

“My understanding is that there are teachers available,” he said.