IDENTIFIERS *Australia; Native Language

The approaches to language maintenance in Australia are diverse and heterogeneous and include at least three kinds of programs: bilingual education programs; ethnic school programs (after hours or weekend programs that are controlled and managed by the community concerned); and mainstream school programs where the indigenous native language is being taught as a school subject as part of the normal school curriculum. This report is divided into three parts. Part A discusses the salient themes of language education common to all students. Part B consists of a series of site reports on language education in different parts of Australia, including language maintenance via community controlled schooling (the case of Arabic in New South Wales) ; language maintenance via mainstream schooling (the cases of Khmer in Western Australia and Chinese and Italian in Victoria); and language maintenance via revitalization and revival (the cases of Noongar and Yindjibarndi, also in Western Australia). Part C is a cost benefit analysi