We already know that the British Prime Minister and John Howard are allies in the "coalition of the willing" and we know that in spite of their supposedly very different outlooks politically they seem to be able to agree about everything.
Sometimes Australia is ahead of the UK and sometimes it is behind.
On this occasion it would be good to remember that in 2004 the following article was published in the Guardian:
Sarah Left Wednesday December 15, 2004 The GuardianNow of course we have Mr Robb, that famous adherent for the promotion of Liberal values, who is trying to convince us about the need for similar items for people living in Australia.
"The Home Office today published a 145-page handbook intended to familiarise prospective citizens with British culture, history, traditions and government, which will serve as the core text for new citizenship tests. . . . . "We want to encourage people who are settling here to acquire a basic knowledge of English and of British society. This is fundamental if we are to help them contribute fully to our national way of life," a Home Office spokesman said.
Remember where you read this first - I expect that very soon there will be a similar issue of publications perhaps even multi media formatted set of options that will enable Australia to go in the same direction as the UK went two years ago.
Oh and by the way did I mention that since 2004 there have been lots of disgruntled migrants in the UK? Some of whom have been naughty enough to actually bomb railway stations and in other ways express their frustration with what is happening over there.
While I support people in Australia learning English I think we need to learn how to help people integrate a little more usefully than seems to have been the case in the UK
.
No comments:
Post a Comment