Cultural Diversity In Australia Essay

CALD learners are students with a cultural background different to that of Australian culture. They are a group of students bringing highly diverse cultural backgrounds as they arrive in Australia due to varied reasons, from different parts of the world. A broad classification of our CALD students are: (i) Children of migrant’s to Australia; (ii) Australian born descendants of migrants and (iii) refugees or their children who are in Australia on humanitarian grounds.

CALD groups face a myriad of challenges on a day-to-day basis, while they are studying and when they are in their workplaces. Often CALD children are mistakenly perceived as learners with low academic abilities as many of they exhibit lack of confidence in using fluent English. Language and communication barriers prevent students, and their families, disclosing concerns. In times of crisis or distress a person’s ability to communicate

al., 2014) and the percentage of increase in CALD students is more than that of Australian students every year since then. This apparent increase in the proportion of CALD participants in our community calls for urgent increase in the development of support for them like appreciating their culture.

Today, cultural diversity is omnipresent in Australian schools. Despite extensive research into this area and suggestions made by many researchers, the teacher education programs in Australia have not responded well enough to accommodate the need of our CALD pupils, by updating the contents of teacher education programs. Premier and Miller (2010) emphasised the relevance of the positive flow-on effect of change in teacher education programmes that would lead to changes in school curriculum to develop support for the increasing participation of CALD learners in Australian school