The Federal Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth, Peter Garrett, last weekend attended an afternoon tea hosted by the Greek Orthodox Community of South Australia to outline the Federal Government’s progress in developing the new national curriculum and to meet South Australian teachers of Modern Greek.
The visit follows the recent release of the draft shape paper for languages in the new national curriculum, which included Modern Greek as one of the languages to be chosen for inclusion. Consultation on the draft is open until April 7.
In addressing the audience, which included representatives from South Australian Greek community organisations as well as representatives of the Greek media, the Minister acknowledged the Greek community’s campaign to highlight the importance of Greek to the national curriculum and said he was pleased ACARA had taken those representations into account.
The Member for Hindmarsh, Steve Georganas, said he was delighted that the Minister had offered to brief the community on the progress of the national curriculum and to meet local teachers who had committed much of their time to the development of the language in recent years. “Everyone in the Greek community should be very proud of what we have achieved by working together, but we need to keep in mind that this paper is simply a draft,” Mr Georganas said.
“I encourage everyone to visit the ACARA website before April 7 to have your say about why, and how, Modern Greek should be taught in the new national curriculum.” The draft shape paper and information on how to make a submission is available on the ACARA website at www.acara.edu.au/curriculum/languages.html