To build on the success of a union anti-intervention speaking tour of Steve Patrick and Peter Inverway earlier this year, Melbourne Anti Intervention Collective is planning a bilingual education day conference on a Saturday in November.

In holding the conference we aim to raise awareness about the ban on Aboriginal languages for the first four hours of school days, and associated measures like welfare quarantining that punish students, families and Aboriginal culture for problems created by chronic under-resourcing. On a more local level, we would address questions of the place- or lack of space- for Aboriginal culture and history in the National Curriculum.

We would also put this attack on Aboriginal educational rights in the context of the NT Intervention, and of the resistance to the intervention.

We see this as an important way to build up the general resistance to Anti Aboriginal racism and resistance to the assimilation push. We want to consolidate primarily education union members, but also more generally teachers, academics, students and other interested parties as Aboriginal rights activists.

We need your help to make this conference as relevant as possible, and to help it reach as wide an audience as possible. We are holding a planning meeting this Thursday evening at the New International Bookshop at Trades Hall.

We would love your ideas about speakers, your knowledge about the issues, your networks and ideas about how we can end these policies.

A tentative agenda for the conference is:

• Session One: Bilingual Education – What’s happening and why?
• Session Two: The National Curriculum and Indigenous Perspectives
• Session Three: Where to from here

Look forward to seeing you there,

Lucy Honan
0404728104

Expert blasts bilingual education changes

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/07/2678651.htm

Please join in a ‘postcard’ mail-out campaign to lobby against this decision. There are two types of postcards:

- ‘Don’t cut off our tongues’ , addressed to Paul Henderson (NT
Chief Minister).
- ‘Reinstate bilingual education’, addressed to our MP Julia Gillard.

The postcards will be available in a couple of weeks. To support this initiative, please contact Greg Dickson, either by email (greg.dickson@batchelor.edu.au) or
c/- Centre for Australian Languages and Linguistics
Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education
Katherine Annexe
PO Box 1896
Katherine NT 0851

and let him know which version and how many postcards you want. Distribute them amongst your friends, family and contacts, and ask them to forward on to the targeted parties.

Any other questions can be directed to Felicity Meakins via email, felicity.meakins@manchester.ac.uk.

Sunday 28 September 2008, 10am-5pm

Explore the many languages of the Canberra region

Enjoy music, dance and food from many cultures

Join a free workshop! Try your hand at Arabic, Greek, Korean, Indonesian, Mandarin, Spanish, or an indigenous language; explore the Cyrillic script or Japanese writing; make a podcast in another language, hear how languages can be a career asset …

Roam around the stalls and discover the world’s languages!

Find out how and where they are taught in the Canberra region

Click here to download the event poster in PDF format

Click here to download the event poster in Word format

Receive a ‘global passport’ and get it stamped for each language you know or learn about on the day.

Raising a child in more than one language?

Share your experiences with other parents, hear some success stories, and discover more about the benefits of bilingualism (11.30am−12.30pm)

Have an opinion about language education in the ACT?

Talk to the politicians and leaders who make the policies (2pm−3pm)

Free admission

Fun for all ages

WHERE? University of Canberra: Main Concourse, Building 1 and Building 2

For more details, contact Faiz on 6201 2333 or email mandy.scott@canberra.edu.au

Click here to download the event poster in PDF format

Click here to download the event poster in Word format