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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-06-27 Daily Xml
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Community Language Schools

The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON (Ramsay—Minister for Tourism, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (15:12): I rise today to update on the work that the Malinauskas Labor government is undertaking with our community language school network in SA. I am incredibly proud that at the last election we took to the people of South Australia one of our most comprehensive multicultural affairs policies ever presented, supported by an additional $16 million in funding over four years to provide assistance to community associations across our state. We have made enormous progress delivering on these commitments, including:

bringing back the Multicultural Women's Leadership course;

the introduction of the Multicultural Media Grant;

the establishment of a Multicultural Chamber of Commerce group;

assessing diversity in both the Public Service and the broader private sector to explore ways to maximise skills and reduce barriers to employment;

the establishment of a multicultural women's microbusiness fund;

annualising the Multicultural Festival; and

the introduction of a community boards and governance program.

In coming weeks, we will finalise our Ambassador Program, working with the private, local government and not-for-profit sectors on embracing the Multicultural Charter and improving diversity and cultural inclusion through improved employment practices. We will also shortly be announcing our Multicultural Resource Directory.

These projects are incredibly worthy and I am very pleased we have been able to roll them out, but today I want to focus on community language schools, formerly known as ethnic schools. Of that additional funding, $4 million over four years will go to support communities to keep their languages strong amongst younger generations. We currently have 89 fully accredited community language schools in our state teaching 47 community languages.

In August 2022, I approved a funding proposal developed by Community Language Schools SA in consultation with multicultural affairs to deliver several activities in year 1 of this project. Year 1 funding incorporates service improvements and additional resource requirements to achieve high-impact results for new and existing language schools. We looked at and identified three priority activities from the first year funding: first, in conjunction with the language schools and an industry provider to develop and deliver a governance and compliance training package. The training package includes assistance for schools to develop a plan for their ongoing governance and to ensure compliance with the legislative requirements.

Second, it was to increase staffing at the association to provide intensive case management and curriculum development services for new and existing community language schools for the initial 12 months. The third priority was to deliver face-to-face personnel training courses (teacher workshops and child safe workshops) in the north of Adelaide, as all previous training was provided at Hindmarsh and Goodwood. Relocating the training to the north of Adelaide will make it more accessible to a considerable proportion of community language school staff.

In October 2022, multicultural affairs and Community Language Schools SA executed a funding agreement for the first three priority activities. In March 2023, I joined the Minister for Education, Training and Skills to announce a second instalment of funding and that focused on support for government and non-government schools that host community language schools.

One of the biggest challenges facing schools is securing a host facility providing the appropriate learning environment after hours in which the school can operate. Traditionally, only public schools received this funding. We have now taken a broader approach and extended this support to include private schools and other facilities. A memorandum of administrative arrangement has been signed to facilitate the distribution of top-up host school funding for government schools also hosting community language schools.

We are providing funding for 12 months to schools without a current host school arrangement which do not currently have their own premises to assist with the cost of rental or relocation once a host site is found. In the second tranche of funding, we have increased needs-based funding to provide additional financial support for classroom learning materials and equipment. We also rolled out grants of up to $100,000 for eligible community language schools to develop or upgrade their community-owned facilities. They have been notified and the successful recipients will begin that rollout next month in July. It has been a great opportunity to have a multicultural lens on community language schools and I remain committed in years 3 and 4 to roll out their funding.

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