“Does the school have a high Vietnamese student intake? I think it’s an important cultural program.” – H. Bacon

“Lack of language teachers is constantly thrown around by schools when staffing becomes inconvenient. As a language teacher myself I have seen this happen. Vietnamese is incredibly important to the Footscray and wider Western suburbs community – a bilingual program should be valued saved at all costs. It benefits every single student in a number of ways.” – A. Wareham

“we proud Australian-Vietnamese condemn the disgraced self-interest decision made by the principal of Footscray Primary School shutting the bilingual program without consulting our community. Footscray has a long history where many thousands of Vietnamese refugee people first anchored and found home for the last 45 years. The community also have full support from governments of all levels to build Vietnamese Museum right here in the very heart of Footscray.  We, the Vietnamese background citizen of this nation, has the right to demand for the program to re-instate to give our children a sense of identity, the respect that we deserve.” – D. Nguyen

“Having had my son at a school where a locally relevant language was abandoned by the new principal and replaced by a language with no local relevance, immediately disenfranchising my son who loved language class, I truly feel for the local Footscray community where Vietnamese is an immediately relevant language, not only in many of the households but all through the retail precinct and community, allowing for a wonderful immersion program and the learning benefits that bilingualism brings to a growing child.  Please don’t let that opportunity be thrown away due to inexperience.  One language class is not the same as another, when in such a context.” – A. Cordon

“stop westernising the suburbs” – G. Sare

“As a parent who had children attend FPS we voted to have the Vietnamese program remain at FPS as recently as 2017. The fact that this decision to keep the program has been reviewed again is a disgrace as well as during COVID19 is opportunistic. Vietnamese is FPS community language and needs to remain. This is an immersion language experience and not a token one hour second language program like most department primary school programs. As a language learner at university level as well as someone who was worked overseas in a non-English speaking country this is another tone deaf decision to preference European languages above Asian languages.” – A. Hopwood

“We have to stop seeing school as a pitstop to a future job and education as a way to optimise wealth output for an individual. These are kids learning a language that is relevant to their immediate surroundings, imagine the excitement of being so holistically immersed in an educational experience like that.” – J. Phu

“This is a racist, Eurocentric decision on behalf of Footscray Primary School. Thousands of schools through the state teach European languages such as Italian or French but Vietnamese is a language that is cultural relevance to the Footscray community.” – M. Thornton-Smith

“This is how Euro dominance continues, and the govt and education dept are reinstating this dominance. By saying we “can’t find an appropriately qualified Vietnamese teacher” is what has been said to women, Indigenous people, and members of many minority groups, forever. It is time to stop this. Vietnamese people, communities, languages and cultures are crucial to Australia’s history and present. Vietnam is our close neighbour and there are SO many links between Vietnamese and Australia. Do your job Victorian Government. Do your job Education Dept. Do your job FPS – or all stand accused of once again of racism by neglect, poor excuses and dishonesty.” – M. Pardy

“The principal at this school is obviously being paid off by the Italian community. To say that recruitment is difficult is an outrageous lie!  Shame on you!  There are hundreds of MORE than capable Vietnamese people who can teach the language in this school. The real problem is that white supremacy is the psyche of this Country.. ENOUGH!  We dare call ourselves an First World Country, when the majority of White Australians can’t speak two languages. Maybe this is why you want to keep kids from learning another language.. so it could ease the pain of that chip on your shoulder..” – D. Ebert

“This was the first primary school my brother and I went too, the community at the time was heavily working immigrant family’s, this was before the real gentrification started and it truly shaped our understanding of different cultures and this program made me and my brother better people, this helped diversify us in so many ways but also helped me communicate with my friends parents.” – H. Ring

“The opportunity to learn in your mother tongue can be such an affirming experience, strengthening or building sense of cultural identity and belonging in community. It shouldn’t be a privilege or marginalised option to do so in a country that purports to pride itself on multiculturalism.” – J. Xu

“The importance of a bilingual program of this cannot be understated. Having not grown up with a program like this has hurt me in many ways. I mourn the years of learning and appreciating my culture through the intrinsic foundation of  vietnamese language. I now am learning slowly and painfully how to speak and understand in Vietnamese and fighting with my Anglo Catholic school upbringing that gave me options in French, Italian and (thankfully) Japanese. I am now healing from the scars of self hatred towards being Vietnamese and reconnecting and hastily collecting the family stories that I can understand from my last living grandparent.  This will cause so much hurt if this cycle is broken.” – M. Dang

“I believe in diverse languages that have good solid economic rationale in the short term and long term growth areas for our region.” – J. Nguyen

“Gentrification and white folks love to brush important cultural education aside in favour of more white or “acceptable” practices. These instances are often done with little to no research or regard for the negative cultural impact they will have n students and local communities.” – S. Taitt