Linguapax
Limiting bilingual education results in declining attendance in the schools of the Northern Territory in Australia.
Prof. Mick Dodson claims that the introduction of educational policies that do not encorporate bilingualism in the Northern Territory have caused a "massive drop off" in attendance of indigenous students in many of the schools. 4 hours of classes in English daily have now become compulsory. Prof. Dodson has said that it is a serious failure of the Northern and Federal Government in relation to the indigenous students.
The results of a lack of support for native languages have already become evident in other parts of the world. The 5000 year-old S'aoch language of the S'aoch people in Cambodia have only ten fluent speakers, with a ten year projection for its extinction. The reason for the decline is a lack of economic incentive. "the S'aoch suffered such extreme poverty that they have rejected their own language and culture in favour of Khmer, hoping things will improve."
The close link between education and employment makes this a serious problem for the students in the Northern Territory.
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