A future Shorten government would try to bolster the number of Australian school children studying Asian languages, pledging a $32 million funding boost if it wins the next election.
Only around 11 percent of Year 12 students study another language at all, 2016 data shows, with Asian languages comprising a smaller share.
The centrepiece of the plan would be 100 new teaching scholarships, offered to native speakers and students who received excellent language results in Year 12.
“We have fewer teachers who are able to teach those subjects, it is a compounding problem,” shadow education minister Tanya Plibersek told ABC Radio.
Labor says the proportion of students who study Asian languages had “stagnated, and in some cases gone backwards”.
The policy would also see additional online teaching resources created for Hindi – one of the most widely-spoken languages in India.
Labor would also collect more data on the number of students enrolled in Asian languages to track progress over the coming years.
