01 - Department of Education and Communities - NSW Government

APPENDICESAppendix 15Implementing the Ethnic AffairsPriority StatementThe cultural and linguistic diversity of NSWgovernment schoolsIn 1997, New South Wales government schools enrolled 164,147students of non-English speaking background (NESB),representing 21.3% of all government school enrolments comparedto 19.8% in 1996.The number and percentage of NESB students varied widelybetween districts. Fairfield district had the highest enrolment with22,960 NESB students, representing 71.6% of district enrolment.Granville district enrolled 17,110 NESB students, 76.2% of districtenrolment. In Bankstown, Port Jackson and St George districts,NESB students represented more than half of all enrolments.In districts with more than 10,000 NESB students, the mostcommon language backgrounds were Arabic in Bankstown,Granville, Liverpool and St George districts and Vietnamese inFairfield district. Students of Chinese language background weremost commonly enrolled in schools in Bankstown, Bondi, Fairfield,Granville, Hornsby, Parramatta, Port Jackson, Ryde and St Georgedistricts.In response to this cultural and linguistic diversity, the Departmentof Education and Training makes provision for the specific needsof NESB students and their parents, through English as a SecondLanguage (ESL) programs, Community Language programs,interpreting and translation services and the CommunityInformation Officer program. Other multicultural education andanti-racism programs are provided for the whole school communityin order to promote the positive values of cultural diversity andensure that all students are able to study in an environment freefrom discrimination and harassment.The Department’s policies in relation to education in and for aculturally diverse society are outlined in the MulticulturalEducation Policy Statement, the Multicultural Education Plan 1992- 1997 and the ESL Education Support Document. Thesedocuments are currently being reviewed and a MulticulturalEducation Plan 1998 - 2000 is due for release in 1998. Thesepolicies are reflected in the Ethnic Affairs Priorities Statement Plan1997 - 1998.Data collectionThe collection of accurate data is an important aspect of theDepartment’s strategy to ensure that the services provided meetthe needs of the schools and their communities. Data is collectedeach year on the numbers of NESB students and their languagebackgrounds through the Annual Census of Schools. Informationon the numbers of newly-arrived NESB students is collected threetimes per year through the New Arrivals Surveys. The Annual ESLSurvey provides information on the numbers of students, teachersand schools in the ESL program, as well as the length of timethose students have been in Australia.In the Annual Census, data is collected on the number of studentswho speak the following 34 languages: Arabic, Chinese, Croatian,Dutch, Farsi, Fijian, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Indonesian,Italian, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Lao, Macedonian, Malay,Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Samoan, Serbian,Sinhalese, Slovenian, Spanish, Tagalog (Filipino), Tamil, Tongan,Turkish, Urdu and Vietnamese. Approximately 9% of NESBstudents speak languages other than these.The numbers and percentage of NESB students have increasedsteadily since 1986 and at the same time there has been a shift inthe main languages spoken. In that time, the number of languageson which data has been collected has also increased from 22 in1986 to 34 in 1997. The following table below gives a summary ofthe data collected over the period 1986 - 1997.Enrolments of NESB students in schools 1986 - 1997Year No.NESB % NESB Main languages spoken (percentage of NESB)1997 164,147 21.3% Chinese 15.6% Arabic 15.0% Vietnamese 6.6% Greek 5.4% Italian 4.4%1996 152,268 19.8% Arabic 15.6% Chinese 14.9% Vietnamese 7.0% Greek 5.5% Italian 4.2%1995 148,148 19.6% Arabic 15.9% Chinese 14.6% Vietnamese 7.4% Greek 5.8% Italian 4.3%1994 141,122 18.7% Arabic 16.5% Chinese 14.8% Vietnamese 7.9% Greek 6.3% It, Mac, Sp 3.9%1993 141,506 18.7% Arabic 17.0% Chinese 14.5% Vietnamese 7.9% Greek 6.9% Italian 4.3%1992 141,548 18.7% Arabic 16.5% Chinese 14.0% Viet, Greek 7.7% Italian 4.6% Mac, Sp 4.1%1991 137,286 18.4% Arabic 16.3% Chinese 12.1% Greek 9.0% Vietnamese 7.4% Italian 5.4%1990 136,195 18.3% Arabic 15.6% Chinese 11.3% Greek 10.2% Vietnamese 6.8% Italian 6.3%1989 133,888 17.9% Arabic 14.9% Greek 11.6% Chinese 10.6% Italian 7.1% Vietnamese 6.1%1988 129,776 17.1% Arabic 14.6% Greek 13.1% Chinese 9.5% Italian 7.8% Vietnamese 6.0%1987 123,109 16.3% Greek 14.5% Arabic 13.4% Chinese 9.1% Italian 8.7% Vietnamese 5.9%1986 114,606 15.2% Greek 15.9% Arabic 13.3% Yugoslav * 12.3% Italian 9.4% Chinese 8.3%* In subsequent years, this category was deleted and data collected on the languages Croatian, Macedonian and Serbian.162 DSE Annual Report 1997