Wednesday, 9 March 2022

Ministers statements: early childhood language program

Ms STITT (Western Metropolitan—Minister for Workplace Safety, Minister for Early Childhood) (12:32): On Monday I had the pleasure of visiting Tarneit Central Kindergarten with local member for Tarneit Sarah Connolly, where they are delivering a bilingual program in Punjabi as part of our government’s early childhood language program. Each week at Tarneit over 300 children learn Punjabi alongside English for 12 of the 15 hours they attend kindergarten. The program, which has been running since 2019, has been so successful it was awarded a multicultural award for excellence. The success of the program is due to teachers Jaspreet, Saeeda, Rajni and Rajwinder. It is clear that the children love being part of the program, with language incorporated into play, art, music, singing, dancing and stories. As well as building their literacy skills, children are strengthening their cultural identity.

The early childhood language program is an Australian first, with our government investing $20.6 million over five years. By next year the program will reach a total of 8000 children at 220 kindergartens, providing jobs for 150 language teachers across 25 different languages, including Aboriginal languages and Auslan amongst the most popular. Languages are chosen based on the languages spoken in the community, the languages of children who are newly arrived or have refugee backgrounds or with reference to languages spoken at nearby primary schools. Among the most popular are Aboriginal languages, Auslan and Chinese.

On Monday I was pleased to announce a further $2.7 million of funding to enable another 57 kinders to deliver a second language. It means even more children can receive the benefits of our government’s language program in early childhood.