Article by Stephen O’Grady, from the Fraser Coast Chronicle
HERVEY Bay is poised to pioneer an indigenous education revolution.
Scrub Hill Indigenous Education Forum. Attending: Sandy Strait State School principal Shane Urquhart, Fraser Coast councillor David Dalgleish, Paul Herschell and Will Davis of Qld Studies Authority with Butchulla elder Frances Gala and Butchulla community linguist Joyce Bonner. Photo by Daniel Tweed
A senior officer from the Queensland Studies Authority was told yesterday that the Fraser Coast is ready to trial a ground-breaking new school syllabus which could place the Butchulla language alongside Chinese, Indonesian, German and French as classroom subjects.
Paul Herschell, acting deputy director of the QSA’s teaching and learning division, met with Butchulla elders and education leaders at the Korrawinga Aboriginal Centre in Hervey Bay to present a statewide proposal to formalise the education of indigenous languages.