President of the Australian-China Relations Institute and former Governor of the New State, Bucca. (photo by SBS)
According to SBS, more than 1.2 million Australians are of Chinese descent and China is Australia`s largest trading partner, but few young Australians choose Chinese.
This week, the Australia-China Relations Institute (Australia-China Relations Institute) held a seminar at (University of Technology Sydney), Sydney University of Science and Technology, to see why the proportion of students enrolled in Chinese remained "consistently low", especially among non-Chinese-born students.
The institute`s dean, (Bob Carr), a former NSW state, told the audience on Monday that only 380 non-Chinese students across the country were studying Chinese in high schools, according to a "challenging statistic."
But when all Chinese and non-Chinese students were taken into account, the number of students learning Chinese rose to about 4000.
"when you think that 1/3 of our exports are purchased by China [the market], you will be worried," he said on the same day. We need to know about this country. We need to have our own level of expertise in China. "
"Australia seems to be lazily counting on Chinese immigrant families to produce their own children and make them our pool of Chinese speakers," Carl told SBS.
"We have to get more people from non-Chinese backgrounds to learn Chinese. I`m sure if we don`t have a larger Australian population with this skill, we`re going to suffer a lot of damage. "
He suggested that Australia might need to undertake educational reforms, including "more rewards for students working hard on the difficult Asian language", such as "maybe we should give them credit for two courses."
Carr`s point of view was endorsed by Meng Xiangxue (John Meng), secretary general of the New State Chinese Teachers` Association (Chinese Language Teachers Association NSW).
"it is so difficult to learn this language that we need motivation." "what`s happening in China is important, and it`s getting more and more important," he told SBS. Through the development of Chinese language skills, we will enhance the understanding between the peoples of Australia and China. "
Australia has 172832 students studying Chinese at school, or 4.7 percent of the total, according to a 2016 report from the Australian-China Relations Institute.
But the report also found that more than half of the students who began learning Chinese in primary school would not continue to learn the language if they could opt out. Among them, the 12-year Chinese students have been very few, only 4149.
At Monday`s meeting, participants said there had been no significant increase in the number of people since the report was released in 2016.
Although the data is not optimistic, many teachers and students remain optimistic. McClaude (Zac Mcleod), a 15-year-old student at (Rouse Hill High School) at Rolls Hill High School, said he chose to learn Chinese because "I want to be a paramedics in the future and I want to eliminate language barriers. When someone gets hurt, I could save their lives.
The school`s teacher, Kate Wang (Kate Wang, said the growing number of students like McLauder had chosen Chinese for "more typical reasons" such as business or politics. "my students mentioned that they wanted to be emergency workers, nurses, or maintain cyber security in Australia. To make society more cohesive, stronger and safer. "
