Gimuy First Nations Languages workshop
Two of our staff, Jillian Bowie and Alexandra Hohoi, attended the Queensland Department of Education event held in Gimuy (Cairns). The 2-day workshop on 19 – 20 March was a gathering of North Queensland’s language and culture educators, school principals, teachers and staff, community organisations, Elders and language curriculum practitioners.
This was a valuable opportunity to meet, share with, and learn from other staff and community members working in the First Nations language teaching space and with significant contributions from the Gimuy Walubara Yindinji language custodians, in particular Uncle Neville Reys and Aunty Josephine Creek.
The theme for the workshop was the importance of language learning on Country. Language and Culture educators working in schools across Queensland shared their valuable work, systemic challenges, and their heart on the importance and urgency to acquire support from school principals and Government to implement systemic change and invest into First Nations language programs.
Guest speakers included Queensland Education’s Deputy Director General Phillip Brooks, Executive Director Terry Cornish, ACARA’s Alison von Dietze, and Carmel Ybarlucea, the Executive Director of Queensland Education’s First Nations Strategy, Policy and Governance, who facilitated the Generational Strategy discussion.
Executive Director Terry Cornish highlighted that protocols must be in place that support new principals coming into a school to be informed by shared decision-making groups and language groups around the work and how it came to be what it is today.
Deputy Director General Phillip Brooks spoke about the multiple layers of work that support teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages in schools, and the work that the department is doing to provide an opportunity for language custodians and schools to come together and share different ways of implementing a language and cultural program in an educational setting.
Mr Brooks reported that in 2024, 152 state schools self-reported as part of a school information collection survey stating they are investigating, developing, or implementing an Aboriginal language or Torres Strait Islander language program.
