Barry questions the status and importance of English language training in Indigenous communities (0:58)

The best example I have of that is 90% of the teachers that come in and teach here in Wadeye in the Catholic school come in here with the idea that English is the answer, and that everyone has to master the English and that’s their role to immerse that English in here but when I ask them why do they need the English, it’s because they can – the answer always is because they can function well in Australia and have the opportunities. And I said, ‘What opportunities?’ Well they can get jobs in Darwin, they can travel to Sydney. I said, ‘But people don’t want to travel’.  So you’re actually working on a premise of something that really the community isn’t at all interested in. They like being here. I’ve asked them, ‘Where do you want to live?’ and they say, ‘Well, here’.  And I said, ‘Have you any idea – do you want to – have you got any idea in your head about living in Darwin or living in Sydney?’, and the answers are always ‘no.