To help support immigrant students in Victoria, Australia, specialist EAL teachers and multicultural education aids from English language schools are being redeployed in the mainstream state school system. This government programme was originally initiated when the added challenge of learning online was implemented during the Covid pandemic and has recently been extended into the first six months of 2022.
According to the Australian New Arrivals Program, school-age children are entitled to attend either an English language school or centre before enrolling in the mainstream school system. However, as the pandemic waned, attendance at these institutions dropped, and it was deemed important to offer the extra English-language learning support where it was needed.
“Our EAL teachers and multicultural education aides can be a lifeline for newly arrived students, providing the specialist support they need to learn English, have the same opportunities as native English-speaking children and feel at home in Victoria,” the Minister for Education James Merlino told neoskosmos.com.
To this end, AUS$25.2 million has been allocated from the Victoria budget to finance the additional help EAL students need at this time.
