Domovina uredništvo
The Saturday School of Community Languages, the place where everyone can learn their community language and take it as HSC subject, has now changed their name into the Secondary College of Languages.
This place is the official part of the NSW Department of Education and is the only place left in Sydney where students of Croatian origin can take Croatian language as one of their HSC subjects.
The Secondary College of Languages has 14 campuses and many languages are taught at more than one campus:
| Arthur Phillip campus – Arabic, Persian, Turkish
Ashfield Boys campus – Chinese, modern Greek, Polish, Spanish
Bankstown Girls campus – Filipino, Hungarian, Macedonian
Birrong Boys campus – Chinese, Vietnamese
Birrong Girls campus – Arabic
Chatswood campus – Armenian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Spanish
Kogarah campus – Chinese, Macedonian, Spanish, modern Greek
Liverpool Boys campus – Arabic, Croatian, Vietnamese
Liverpool Girls campus – Bosnian, Khmer, Polish, Tamil, Spanish, Serbian
Merewether campus – Chinese
Petersham campus – Portuguese, Turkish, Vietnamese
Smiths Hill – Arabic, Chinese, Macedonian, Serbian, Modern Greek
Strathfield Girls – Chinese, Italian, Korean
The Hills – Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Maltese, Spanish, Modern Greek, Punjabi
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The Croatian language is taught to about 30 students from Year 7 to Year 12, at this moment, by 2 teachers.
To teach there you need to be an accredited teacher and approved by the NSW Department of Education. For students, it is free to attend and study their “materinski jezik”.
The current number of students is obviously not sufficient, and teachers were informed that if this number does not at least double in the next 3 years, there will be no more Croatian language on any campus in Sydney.
There are over 100 000 people of Croatian origin in Australia and over 30 000 live in Sydney.
Why do we not have more children at the Liverpool campus learning Croatian? Maybe it is because:
- The Croatian community in Sydney is either divided or apathetic?
- It seems that there are people who do not want Croatian language to survive and will start any rumours they deem necessary to further divide the community or stop any progress.
- Students are not encouraged in their regular schools to take Croatian language as HSC option.
- Some parents say that their children cannot come on Saturday morning to Croatian school because of the soccer practice.
There are at least 100 younger students currently learning Croatian in community schools, at the primary school level – they will learn basics and most of them will not continue learning Croatian in high school.
We need Croatian high school students to come to the Liverpool campus – they can come at any time, from year 7 to year 12, even at Term 3 or Term 4.
They will learn a lot about themselves and their Croatian identity, they will learn about what students currently learn in the schools in Croatia, they will learn to love speaking their language and they will be able to read Croatian literature and anything else of interest in Croatian language. They will start on the path of self-discovery, as you cannot fully understand your ancestors if you do not understand the language.
When we Croatians come to Croatian church, we expect the priest to speak in Croatian. Who will understand him in the years to come if children do not learn Croatian on a deeper level? Will anyone understand him in 10 years? In 15 years? In 20 years?
How many people would understand me if I wrote this letter in Croatian?
