The Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth, Peter Garrett, met with a delegation from the Australian Hellenic Council last week to discuss the community’s response to the current set up for Modern Greek in the Australian curriculum.
The delegation – which consisted of Associate Professor Vrasidas Karalis (The University of Sydney), Australian Hellenic Educators’ Association President Dr Panayiotis Diamadis, AHC (NSW) Coordinator George Vellis and AHC (NSW) Secretary Mary Giannisis – expressed the community’s satisfaction that Modern Greek has been included as a priority language, however raised concerns that Modern Greek may be listed in the final phase. As it stands, there are eleven priority languages to be included in the Australian curriculum.
Both Professor Karalis and Dr Diamadis stressed that with this existing infrastructure, along with the expected timeframe between the present and the introduction of the the language programs, all eleven languages can be introduced simultaneously.
“The Australian Curriculum – Languages, needs to be treated in the same way as the other curricula,” stated Dr Diamadis. “To phase in the eleven language separately is being interpreted by education professionals and interested members of the community as a de facto ranking of languages.”