When Kevin Rudd ousted John Howard to become prime minister in 2007, one of his key platforms was the teaching of Asian languages in our schools.
The Mandarin-speaking PM was dead right when he said Australia’s future would depend heavily on its relationship with Asia.
An independent study commissioned in 2009 backed him up, noting that Australia needed to quadruple the number of students learning Asian languages to compete with other nations.
It recommended spending billions of dollars to teach students Mandarin, Japanese and Indonesian, to hire world-class teachers and to construct a National Asian Languages Institute in Canberra.
That report, like Mr Rudd, has been pushed aside and so too have Asian language classes.
In fact, Asian languages are not even part of the curriculum in our primary schools.
Under the current system, children like those at Stanwell Park Public must pay to attend optional classes outside normal school hours if they want to learn a second language.
It is an unacceptable, short-sighted approach and one that must change immediately.
Our future depends on it.
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