Fourteen academics from NSW leading universities have written to the O’Farrell Government to appeal against plans to abolish dedicated funding for teachers of English as a second language.
The letter to Education Minister, Adrian Piccoli, says funding for ESL teachers will be distributed to schools as “untied and untagged” funding. Under the existing scheme the funding aims to provide 1600 specialist ESL Teachers in 896 teaching and consultancy positions. These teachers support 130,000 migrant and refugee children.