National Agenda for a Multicultural Australia
Issues
The education, training and labour market challenges presented by the multicultural mix of Australian society express themselves in several different ways:
(i) Overseas Qualifications
- Failure to recognise overseas qualifications or to provide effective arrangements so that overseas skills and training can be upgraded, accredited and utilized, represents a major waste of the nation's human resources.
Today there is a substantial pool of immigrants, both tradespeople and professionals, who are not working in jobs for which they were originally trained overseas - and that number is growing annually.
While some immigrants may decide not to work in the field in which they are trained, many are prevented from entering professions, trades and jobs for which they are trained.
Inadequate recognition of overseas qualifications, language barriers and lack of opportunity for further study or work experience have been significant causes of our failure to capitalize fully on these overseas investment in our human capital.
Australia assesses potential immigrants on the contribution they can make to our economic development. We must also ensure that we put in place complementary domestic policies in order that the skills acquired overseas are actually used to benefit all Australians.
(ii) Trade and Tourism
- Today seven of our ten largest export markets and eight of our ten fastest growing markets are non-English speaking countries.
The language skills and cultural knowledge of Australians from non-English speaking backgrounds represent a natural reservoir of talent that could be deployed to advance the interests of Australian tourism, trade, foreign investment and diplomacy.
This applies particularly to trade services where communication is paramount. We already possess a considerable pool of bilingual Australians fluent in key trade languages such as Chinese, German, Arabic, Spanish and Italian. Such community languages need to be developed and extended.
(iii) Schooling
- Skills developed at school provide the basis for personal development, vocational preparation and a productive working life. Four out of every ten children in Australian classrooms were born overseas, or are the children of overseas born parents or are Aboriginal.
They come from families where in one in eight cases, English is not spoken at home, and where in many other cases their religion, race, culture, values or historical frame of reference distinguishes them from their teachers and peers.
In order to produce genuine equality of opportunity and to ensure that their natural talents are fully developed and expressed they, like all children, require an educational environment that is responsive to their circumstances and needs.
They need a schooling that recognises and respects their cultural identity; that offers adequate English language tuition where needed; and that promotes cross-cultural respect and understanding among themselves and their peers.
- NESB students, as a group, do well in Australian schools. Figure 5.1 shows that students born in non-English speaking countries aged 15 to 19 years participate at levels higher than students born in Australia or in English speaking countries.
But the overall statistics on performance and participation of school children from linguistically and culturally different backgrounds disguises important variations between ethnic groups.
- The poor situation of Aboriginal children is well documented but data on the educational achievement of children from other backgrounds, particularly individual birthplace groups, is too sparse to allow the conclusion that equal educational opportunity is yet a reality.
While children of Greek and Italian parents, for example, seem to have high rates of school retention, those of Maltese and Turkish background drop out of school early.
Children born in non-English speaking countries who come to Australia with their parents face considerable barriers, and are vitally dependent on the provision of intensive English classes on their arrival if they are to make a successful transition to the Australian school system.
Gender and socioeconomic status, as well as culturally variable parental expectations, are also important determinants of educational outcomes.
(iv) Vocational Training
- The access to and participation by people from different cultural, linguistic and birthplace backgrounds in education and training continue to be difficult to assess given the lack of adequate data.
Statistics about the participation of NESB people in traineeships and apprenticeships, in TAFE courses, and in labour market training programs are patchy and difficult to interpret.
- Provision of English language courses and English language support to facilitate participation in training is of particular importance. So too is the reform of training curricula to build upon previously acquired skills and to introduce new skills necessary to work effectively in a multicultural society.
(v) Industry and Occupational Segmentation
- Many immigrants have shown considerable entrepreneurial talent, acumen and plain hard work to establish small businesses and to develop large ones. Yet Australians from non-English speaking countries continue to be over-represented as workers in manufacturing industries (Figure 5.2) and in some low-skilled occupations (Figure 5.3).
NESB women remain concentrated in the unskilled and semi-skilled echelon of the services sector. As with the majority of Aboriginal workers, they tend to be reliant on casual and part-time work and on the unregulated or poorly protected fringe areas of the labour market.
- Multicultural policies seek to develop an awareness among employers that all workers can benefit from training and that the English language training needs of workers should be seen as an integral component of increased industry training.
(vi) Economic Restructuring
- As industry and award restructuring proceed it will be necessary to ensure that the associated training and retraining arrangements take particular account of vulnerable groups. In particular, appropriate measures are required to address the limited English language ability of many immigrant workers.
Their labour market isolation and disadvantage is likely to worsen if language barriers inhibit or preclude their access to the enhanced training opportunities in restructured awards.
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