Indigenous languages banned in schools

The Territory Government has made this year a transition phase towards a new bilingual policy which will make it compulsory for schools to teach only in English for the first four hours of the day from next year.

It is not a bilingual school if English is the primary language of curriculum delivery and for 4 hours a day. Presumably the morning. That is the bulk of lessons. Our school afternoons are much shorter than the mornings. Bilingual means curriculum is delivered in two languages. The indigenous languages are disappearing and this will assist their demise. I accept that aboriginal people need to have English skills to access our education and our systems, but I understand that getting them into school is one of the hurdles. Giving them a foreign language to operate in is not going to help them. If we only want to deliver education in English then we need to do that and say that. We shouldn't pretend. Then we should build in the indigenous language delivery as a bone fide part of the school day. It is horrible to make aboriginals feel like aliens in their own country.  This is all tricky stuff and needs to be better negotiated if the plan to educate in English is coming into place next year. I should have thought it might be better to start a changeover with kindergarten and then build on that each yeat so that the studnets starting kindie next year with be more exposed to English and then pursue their learning more often in English.