Step in to prevent language ‘extinction’, Atec urged

Australia’s higher education steward would be enlisted to tackle the “market logic” rendering the teaching of Asian languages “functionally extinct”, under recommendations from a parliamentary group.

The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Education says the recently created Australian Tertiary Education Commission (Atec) must use its powers to prevent a terminal decline in the “vital sovereign capability” of Asia literacy.

“At present, students are not financially incentivised to study Asian languages or cultures, academics are not financially incentivised to pursue careers focused on the study of Asia, and Australia’s universities are not financially incentivised to deliver the vital sovereign Asia capabilities Australia requires,” the committee says in a report from a 10-month inquiry.

“Proactive government intervention is required. Atec has a role in ensuring that the university sector is delivering…skills and qualifications that meet Australia’s strategic interests. [Its] establishment provides an opportunity for a cohesive government approach to embedding Asia capability within the higher education sector.”

The committee has urged Atec to establish an “Asia Capability Compact” as a common feature in the mission-based compacts negotiated with each university. It would designate institutions to serve as “anchor providers” in Asian culture and language, and guarantee that any Australian student could learn major Asian languages through cross-institutional arrangements.

The compact would prevent key language programmes from being closed without Atec’s agreement. In return, funding settings would be stripped of disincentives to teach languages – through special demand-driven arrangements or “ring-fenced” protection of “sub-scale but nationally important” programmes, or both.

In a related recommendation, the committee wants Atec to establish a network of “Asian language hubs” offering programmes from beginner to advanced level, accepting students from other universities and combining language teaching with content such as history, politics and society.

The committee has also recommended that Atec include Asia capability in the “statement of strategic priorities” (SSP) that, in the commission’s words, “shapes where Australian tertiary education needs to go and how to get there”.

Atec has released an interim SSP pending publication of the first biennial statement, due in January. The interim version acknowledges “sovereign capability” skills as a priority but does not mention Asia or foreign languages. “[We] will be conducting consultation with the sector on what should be included in the SSP in coming months,” acting Atec CEO David Turvey told Times Higher Education.

The committee heard that tertiary study in Asian language and culture was at “breaking point” because of “perverse” funding arrangements and plunging demand at school level. Several Asian languages had “disappeared entirely” from universities, and the teaching of Indonesian – spoken by Australia’s second-closest neighbour and the world’s fourth most-populous country – would be “functionally extinct” in five years without intervention.

With fewer than 500 of Australia’s million-odd domestic students now learning Indonesian, it is a “case study” of the fate awaiting other key languages such as Mandarin and Japanese, while major South Asian tongues – including Punjabi, Hindi and Nepali – are “almost entirely absent” from educational offerings at any level.

The committee heard that the Job-ready Graduates (JRG) reforms had exacerbated the decline in the study of Asian culture by more than doubling tuition fees for humanities subjects. And while foreign languages were spared from the JRG price hikes – with fees instead lowered and subsidies increased – this had “perversely” discouraged universities from offering language programmes that consumed their funding envelopes more quickly than other subjects, and made it uneconomic for them to accept unsubsidised students.

“That’s exactly one of the problems that the Atec was established to help address,” Turvey told the committee.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com