John Hajek

University of Melbourne

Whither Italian?
Italian in Australia’s Universities.
Why It’s Important and How to Save it

This paper has three fundamental purposes. First, it is to encourage those involved in the preservation and promotion of Italian language and culture to turn more of their attention towards Australia’s universities. Whilst there has been recent positive movement in this direction by Italian authorities and concerned individuals, much more remains to be done, and could be done with major positive spin-offs for Italian language and culture, Italy and the Italian community in Australia. In the second, it is an attempt to explain the nuts and bolts of the Australian university system today. Finally, it looks at the state of Italian in our universities from 1950 to 2000, and makes suggestions as to what could be done to improve its position.

Over the last twenty years, the Italian community (with Australian and Italian government funding) have fought long and hard for the expansion of Italian within the primary and secondary sectors. The results are outstanding in terms of sheer numbers of students being taught (cf. Di Biase et al 1994). Much less consideration, however, has been given to the long-term outcomes of this program. The hope that students taught Italian in primary school would continue with Italian at secondary and tertiary levels has not materialized. Indeed observers (eg Di Biase et al. 1994 and Carsaniga 1995) have pointed to the catastrophic drop in numbers as students progress into secondary schools. By Year 12, only 1% are still doing Italian across the nation, with an even smaller number of post-matriculants continuing at university level. It is a disappointing fact that most Italian programs at Australian universities now rely on students entering Beginners stream for the largest portion of their first year student intake.

If universities are to play a greater role in the promotion of Italian and Italian interests, then it’s imperative that we should all understand the importance, nature and the many problems of the university sector. There is no doubt that pro-Italian forces should have a better idea of how Italian might be promoted at university-level  - as a cost-effective and targeted means of benefiting the Italian community and Italy in the longer term. But to achieve this goal it is imperative to realize that the Australian university today is very different from what it was twenty, ten, and even five years ago. Change is profound. ongoing and shows no sign of abating. The result is of course that in this environment of seemingly permanent economic rationalization, most languages other than English, including Italian, are now under more pressure than they have ever been in the university sector.

Whilst I do not wish to argue the case of how much emphasis we should be giving to Italian in primary and secondary schools, the suggestion that more should be done at university level does not mean that less should be done elsewhere. More resources are needed everywhere. But it is worth reminding ourselves that it is in everybody’s interest to have as many university-trained graduates in Italian as possible – since it is these (and only these) who can then become qualified primary, secondary and tertiary teachers. There is already a desperate shortage of qualified Italian teachers in many parts of Australia – a fact that only weakens the ability of Italian to survive in affected schools.

Australian Tertiary Sector & the Bigger Picture: Why Targeting Universities is Important

In today’s globalising, commercialising, consumerist world, it is fashionable to measure success and status in market terms. Accordingly, a basic ingredient of success is, of course, product placement. Put very crudely, universities are highly desirable market-places: they provide an excellent platform for the social and economic promotion of whatever it is you’re trying to sell, providing instant status, cultural cachet and access – in a very cost-effective and targeted manner. From a marketing perspective, Italians here and in Italy should count themselves lucky at the opportunity given them by the teaching of Italian to Australia’s university students, the nation’s future leaders. There are indeed many other large ethnic groups in this country who have never had their languages taught in Australia’s universities (or only in the most meagre way), nor enjoyed the economic and social benefits and cultural status that derives from it.

There is no doubt that Australian universities play a fundamental role in shaping Australian society, its culture, politics and economy. Academics, for instance, were central in the development of what many consider to be one of Australia’s greatest achievements, ie multiculturalism. And if ever it was said that university-educated men and women control decision-making processes in this country, the observation is even truer today: the highest levels of government and business are dominated by university graduates in ever increasing numbers. One needs only look at today’s 30-member federal ministry in Canberra for confirmation: 27 ministers have tertiary qualifications. The remaining three represent rural seats, 2 are farmers & members of the National Party, and the age of two of these is much higher than the ministry average. [1]

Official government policy at both state and federal level continues to be one of post-secondary expansion, in recognition of the need to expand tertiary training as fundamental to the modernization and economic development of the country. Government policies in favour of sector deregulation and increased private funding of the tertiary sector have of course also encouraged the expansion of direct links between business and universities. The global results of all of these initiatives are already quite clear – we have record-levels of university participation amongst youth today, whilst government and private tertiary funding are now respectively amongst the lowest and highest in the western world today. [2] The relationship of influence between universities, government and business is further reinforced by the increasingly evident mobility of academics and decision makers to move within the nexus of government, academia and business. It is no accident that the Hon Prof. John Dawkins (Labor) and Hon. Minister Dr David Kemp (Liberal), recent and current federal ministers with responsibility for higher education are themselves academics by profession.

It follows then from the scenario described, however, that if a group or collective wishes to influence long term decision making in Australia (and elsewhere for that matter), they should be working hard to influence students in the university sector, since there is no doubt that these are more than likely the leaders and policy setters of the future. Full credit must be given to the Italian government’s foresight in this area. It has a longstanding policy of helping university-level Italian programs directly by providing Italian language lectorships around the world. And the Italian government has in recent years has certainly renewed effort in this area by increasing the number of lettorati assigned to Australian universities. In 1999 we also witnessed the important initiative taken by the Fondazione Cassamarca in funding eleven lectureships in Australia – seven of which went directly to Italian studies programs. All of these activities are of course most welcome and gratefully acknowledged, but should be seen as only a new but certainly not final phase in greater collaboration between Italian studies programs at universities and the Italian community.

Understanding the Australian University of Today

One reason Australian universities might have been somewhat overlooked in the promotion of Italian is the difficulty outside observers have in understanding the internal workings of the university sector. This is hardly surprising: Australian universities have undergone such radical change in the last 10-20 years that they are barely recognizable even to those who have past experience of them, whether as students or staff. It also needs to be made clear that Australian and Italian universities and their staff function in very different ways. Many of the privileges extended to Italian academics are no longer known to their Australian counterparts.

My suggestion is that a full and up to date understanding of the Australian university today is needed for the Italian community to take full advantage of the social, cultural and economic leverage the university sector can provide.

In very blunt terms, the Australian tertiary sector has already been extensively worked over by economic rationalism forced upon it by Labour and Coalition governments since the 1980s. Substantial productivity gains have been made, ie many more students, larger classes, fewer staff at lower than expected cost, with much more research activity, as well as increased teaching and administration. Salary increases are no longer a government responsibility and are now paid for by internal savings (job losses) and increased private funding. As a result, so-called loss-making and/or non-strategic teaching and research areas are reduced, if not eliminated completely, to save on money. It is hardly surprising that LOTEs (Languages other than English), generally small, expensive to teach, with a tradition of relatively low research output, have borne the brought of this change: language departments everywhere in Australia have been restructured, merged and reduced in number with many forced to close completely. Whilst exact figures are not available, many languages once on offer in Australia’s universities are no longer taught. For those languages that have survived, such as Italian, there has been significant downsizing: I would estimate a reduction, across the nation since 1990, of perhaps 40% to 50% in the number of academics working in Italian studies departments and programs – through staff attrition and permanent closure.

Whilst much anger and angst has been expressed by academics in Australia at this cost-cutting and economic squeezing, it should be noted that economists around the world hold up the Australian experience of tertiary reform as a model to follow – and indeed similar changes are now being introduced in other countries.

As part of the federal government’s shake-up of universities, there are now indicators and targets at every level – for faculties, departments, programs and individuals to meet. Government funding of universities is no longer a straightforward matter. Instead we have a complex formula which retains a substantial component for an agreed number of undergraduate places (universities are financially penalised for not meeting targets), but with an ever increasing financial emphasis on research performance. Research performance is determined by numbers of enrolled postgraduates, the number of successful MA and PhD completions within specified time periods, number of research publications as well as success in obtaining competitive research funds from external sources. Universities are also actively encouraged to increase funding from fees and the business sector.

At the micro level, departments and programs receive funding on the basis of student numbers, and research productivity. It is very important to realise that students do not have the same value in dollar terms: funds are allocated according to so-called EFTSU (equivalent full-time student unit). First-year students are worth a fraction of one unit (generally 5-8 first-year students according to university), with the financial value of a student increasing progressively in successive years. The financially most valuable students are postgraduate students who have not gone beyond their completion deadline. Herein lies the rub for Italian and other LOTEs: enrolments are substantially higher in first year language courses, dropping off dramatically with each passing year. Typically, there is a 90-100% attrition rate from first- to fourth year (Bettoni 1992: 63, Table 9). Postgraduate numbers in Italian studies in most Australian universities are also pitifully low when compared to huge postgraduate enrolments in history, fine arts, and politics for instance. Although many universities partially subsidize language programs by increasing the notional monetary/EFTSU value of LOTE students, the contact-intensive nature of first and second year language courses means that, in the absence of substantial EFTSU funding, language academics have substantially higher teaching loads. Whereas colleagues in fine arts or history departments might have 4-7 hours per week, academics in language departments more typically have a weekly teaching load of 10-15 hours. The disadvantage for Italian programs in this discrepancy is obvious. Bettoni (1992) herself noted that many Italianists, if given the opportunity, would choose to work in departments other than in an Italian Studies program or department.

The Changing Academic in a Language Program Today

Until the early 1980s, the average Australian academic with an appointment in languages was typically thought to have one major task, teaching. Indeed many colleagues were appointed specifically as teaching only staff. There was relatively little administration (bureaucratic interest from above was slight then), and research was the domain of those few who were interested in it. By 1990 bureaucratic pressures from above and the rhetoric of the ‘Clever Country’ had expanded the work-list to include substantial administration, as well as serious expectations of research productivity.

Now in 2000, the winds of change have truly blown. Today the model LOTE academic has major responsibility in at least five very different areas, and is expected to perform to a high standard in each:

(1) teaching

(2) administration

(3) research

(4) outreach & promotion

(5) multimedia and information technology

Research productivity is critical, but what the government considers to be research publication is much less generous than we might think. Since annual budgets are now partly research-based, departments must obtain external grants, and raise postgraduate numbers as well as research output to increase funding. But only 5 narrowly defined categories are acceptable to the government: (1) research monograph; (2) peer reviewed journal article; (3) peer reviewed conference chapter; (4) edited book and (5) chapter in edited book.  The first is given a weighting of 5 points, the rest only one point by the government. Translations, scholarly editions of texts, poetry, textbooks, so-called unrefereed conference proceedings, etc…. are excluded.

Outreach and promotion activities relate not only to one’s discipline, but also to one’s department, faculty and university. Minimally, these entail school visits, 2-3 open days for students per annum, events for alumni, as well as media related activity. The rise of computer technology is the most complex of all: the pressure is on to use, design and create multimedia resources for students. The early hope that this new generation of technology would lower costs and reduce workloads has proven to be a false one. In fact, the effect is clearly the reverse for it replaces no pre-existing activity, only adding to them.

Despite deregulation, academic salaries are still dependent on a now out of date formulation used by the government until the mid 1990s for salary calculation: it was accepted even then the average academic worked a 50 hour work week, divided equally between teaching (33.3%), administration (33.3%) and research (33.3%). A teaching hour (lecture, seminar or tutorial) was, and still is, calculated to be equivalent to 3 hours work (preparation, delivery and marking). At the time, therefore a six-hour teaching load was considered equivalent therefore to a real total of eighteen hours work.

Today the situation is much worse, as confirmed by a range of surveys (see Coaldrake and Stedman (1999) for details). Sector reform means that there are no specific limits on teaching, research or administrative loads. Indeed all of these have of course increased substantially in the last ten years - without including the recently added activities of outreach/promotion and multimedia activity.  There is general agreement - even on the part of the Federal government - that across the university sector workload is now for may the greatest workplace issue in Australia’s universities.

If five areas of work activity were not enough, unlucky academics, typically in smaller disciplines such as languages (including Italian) often have to add a sixth and seventh:

(6) long overdue completion of a PhD dissertation

(7) defending one’s small patch from reduction and possible closure.

There is no doubt that the proportion of LOTE academics with PhD qualification is lower than the national average for university academics. This observation is especially true for Italianists. The negative consequences are all too obvious: staff busy trying to complete their doctorate are unable to publish according to government funding criteria. Hence funding is reduced, rendering more precarious the financial viability of one’s language area. Relatively small enrolments, staffing, low research productivity and limited funds all conspire to form a vicious circle: it is easy then to see why LOTEs have been targeted for reduction and elimination at many Australian universities. When this happens, energies that were once divided across (1-6) become concentrated exclusively in (7) – with minimal effort left for everything else.

Italian Studies Programs in Australian Universities 1950-2000

The period extending from 1950 to the late 1980s was the boom period for Italian in Australia’s tertiary sector (see Andreoni & Rando 1973, Bettoni 1992, Comin 1987, Di Biase et al 1994): from a single accredited program in 1950, the number peaked at 31 across the sector (36 if still to be amalgamated colleges of the time are also included) in 1988. The federal government’s restructuring since then of all tertiary institutions into universities led to forced amalgamations and to an apparent decline to 26 by 1990. The number has continued to drop since then: 25 in 1992, down to the current number of 20 in 2000.

Table 1: Numbers of Australian tertiary institutions offering

accredited Italian programs (1950-2000). Sources include

Di Biase et al 1994) and Bettoni (1992)

But the 1990s is not a period simply of contraction: Italian was introduced into at least four universities during this time (University of Notre Dame in Perth, University of Technology Sydney, Sunshine College University as well as Northern Territory University in Darwin where it did not survive). And it appears now that the number of Italian programs has stabilized around the country. There may be a further reduction in the future – hardly surprising since some operations are still very small – but this should not be viewed as necessarily a bad thing, as discussion below makes clear.

The best predictor of an Italian program’s ability to survive the 1990s appears to have been the relative size of its student body in 1990 measured in so-called EFTSU as previously described. Not surprisingly, small EFTSU numbers mean lack of financial viability. The following table provides a summary of Italian programs in 1990/1992 and again in 2000 across the states and territories. Also indicated are those programs with small student loads (ie less than 30 so-called EFTSUs) in 1990. All but one of the closed programs fell below that mark.

Table 2: Universities offering Italian in 1990 and 1992 and 2000, with additional information on small student loads. Based largely on Di Biase et al (1994).

We need also take a more global perspective and make comparisons with, dare I say it, our major competitors, Table 3 shows quite clearly that in 1990 per institution, Italian programs had on average quite small numbers around the country: French and Japanese were twice the size per university on average. German, with a low national average, was, like Italian, also hit hard in the early 1990s by cutbacks.

Table 3: total student load measured in EFTSU across

Australia for each language in 1990 (Bettoni 1992)

This ‘spread it wide, spread it thin’ approach to Italian that seemed to characterize Australian universities in the 1980s helped cause Italian to fare less well in the 1990s than Japanese, French and to suffer bigger cuts. It is a plain fact that bigger departments, regardless of discipline – with more students, more staff, more hands on deck and more clout – will always be better positioned to resist pressure from above to achieve financial savings by closing down disciplines. The conclusion to be draw from all of this is of course that size really does matter – at universities as in life.

Italian in the New Millennium: A Positive Spin?

But is it all gloom and doom for Italian? Despite all the downsizing and the all new pressures on academics around the country, it is not the case that Italian has been especially picked on. The whole Humanities area of tertiary sector has been truly squeezed with the result that some universities no longer have Arts faculties.

One could easily make the case that Italian has been extremely fortunate: Italian is doing much better than most of the other 39 languages that were taught in Australian universities in 1990. Many have simply disappeared in the intervening period, others are now literally on the their last legs and won’t see the year 2000 out, and some such as Greek and Russian – once taught around the country – are still in the throes of substantial decline. It makes no difference that the former is a very large community language, and that the latter is an international language with few native speakers in Australia: both are suffering equally.

Indeed Italians and Italy are truly privileged by the access they have to Australian universities – for it is an excellent marketing opportunity afforded to very few other communities and countries. Many language communities in Australia, often quite large, can only look in envy at the great advantage Italians have in providing opportunities for their children and all Australians to learn their language and culture.

Italy and Italians are also very privileged by the fact that a least four universities in the 1990s saw fit – despite all the cutbacks and pressures across the sector – to introduce Italian, when others were closing it. Three of these programs still operate.

Italy and Italians have also benefited by the tremendous effort some (though not all) universities have made to encourage the learning of LOTEs by their students. [3] The University of Melbourne is a case in point, and a model cited by Australian academics as one to emulate in this area: as a result of substantial efforts (internally motivated driven I should add) all LOTE indicators, but in particular total student enrolments, research success, & postgraduate numbers show substantial positive increases. All of this has been achieved in a relatively short period of 5-6 years. Not all languages have done as well as others of course, but Italian is one of the success stories. The Italian Studies program at the University of Melbourne is now the largest in Victoria and the second largest of its kind in the country.

Overall of course one could not say that across the nation Italian was flourishing in our universities in the way that French, Japanese and Chinese seem to be in many places – but there is real hope for Italian.

What the Italian Community and Italy can do to help Italian at Universities

I have already mentioned the renewed interest of the Italian government and the assistance of the Fondazione Cassamarca in helping Italian in Australian universities. It is true that the Italian government is extremely generous in its assistance to language programs at all levels of education. All assistance, public or private, is of course greatly appreciated and it is hoped will continue and expand in the future for more certainly could be done at university level.

Whilst there are many suggestions I could make about initiatives in favour of Italian at university, I will only make a small number here that focus directly on our youth:

(1) Reversing the pattern of decline in secondary schools

With so much effort made to teach Italian to our primary and secondary students, we need to understand why so many children at secondary school choose, with each passing year, not to continue with Italian. The drop across the 12 years of primary and secondary school, as already mentioned, is nothing less than cataclysmic (99% attrition from primary to Year 12) – and is not mirrored by French and Japanese for instance. Even restricting our attention to the period of secondary education, a loss of 93% over only 5 years is still disastrous – as the following table makes clear.

In the last row of Table 4 there is an even more disturbing fact: whereas in the first year of secondary school 58.5% of children learning a LOTE are doing Italian, by the final year only 5.7% of all LOTE learners are still with us. The other 94.3% are doing French, German, Japanese, Chinese, and a raft of other languages in a system, the Catholic one, which has always had a large Italo-Australian student base and has been very helpful to Italian. Figure 1 provides a clear graphic representation of the patterns of loss in the secondary system.

Table 4: Students of Italian in Catholic Secondary Schools in Victoria in 1990

Source: Catholic Schools of Victoria, Teaching of LOTE 1990

Fig.1 Italian Enrolments in Catholic Secondary Schools in Victoria (1990). Bars represent total number of enrolments per year. The line represents proportion of LOTE students in the system learning Italian in each year.

(2) Targeting the Independent School System

We have for some time relied on the provision of Italian to those sectors of primary and secondary education where Italo-Australian children figure strongly, ie government and Catholic schools. But we have long known that the size of an ethnic community in Australia does not correlate in the slightest with language study at universities (cf Bettoni 1992 for figures confirming this). If that were the case, Departments of Greek, Italian, Polish, Dutch, Vietnamese, Macedonian, etc…. would be enormous and taught in every university in the country. The real predictors of whether students choose a particular language to study at university are the language’s perceived level of cultural status and the degree to which a language is taught by independent (non-government/non-Catholic) schools, a factor which only serves to reinforce this status. The great fortune French (and also German) has had in being taught in these schools for more than century is remarkable: once entrenched, they have proven themselves almost impossible to dislodge – to the great benefit of French and German interests in this country, including their respective language departments in Australian universities.

A very simple maxim about these schools applies – given their obvious social status, what students in these schools do, others follow. Their cultural and social influence on universities, other schools and society in general is very strong. It is important to remember that private schools had already begun the big push to Asian languages in the 1970s (long before anyone else had noticed). Wesley College in Melbourne for instance already by 1975 had the largest Indonesian program in the nation, alongside French (Latin and German were pushed out by the early 1970s). Only much later did State and Catholic schools, with some frantic pushing and encouragement on the part of governments, came running to Asian languages.

I am not the first to make these social observations about language study in Australia. Indeed Italian authorities and the Italo-Australian community are already very aware of the positive benefits for Italian and Italy access to the independent school sector can provide and have begun to take steps to encourage the introduction of Italian in these schools. The sector is expanding and the proportion of all students attending continues to increases - in line with government policy at all levels (state and federal) that wants to take advantage of the much lower tax dollar cost per head of providing education to our youth.

The battle for the introduction and expansion of Italian in this sector is long and hard one but must be fought. The benefits of learning Italian flow not only to the children who attend these schools, but to all Australians, and in particular Italo-Australian children – whose self-esteem and appreciation of their own heritage and culture can only rise if it can be shown to them that Australia’s social elite (concentrated in its independent schools and universities) is as appreciative of Italian as it is of French, Chinese and Japanese for instance.

The language pendulum in independent schools already shows signs of swinging back – at least a little - to Europe – after an intensive flirtation with Asia. There is already a discernible return to the two traditionally favoured European languages, French and German, resulting in a knock-on effect of increased enrolments at university level. The first-year post-VCE French intake at the University of Melbourne has expanded so much in recent years that it is larger in size than the combined 1^st year post-VCE Italian intake at the five universities in Melbourne offering Italian. We have to ensure that Italian takes its share of this same pro-European momentum.

(3) Short-term Travel Scholarships for University Students:

The final suggestion applies more directly to students at universities. I have for some years now suggested that, in addition to the provision of lettorati to help with teaching, the single most effective way of motivating students to do Italian and then continue with it through undergraduate and then postgraduate studies is the provision of travel scholarships to Italy. Universities in the 1990s saw the very positive impact travel to a home country had on language learners and began to offer such awards. Market research I conducted in the mid-1990s at the University of Melbourne showed that the desire to travel was the single most important reason why students undertook the Beginners’ Italian course (& French for that matter). Not only do such travel schemes (from one to three months and in tune with academic calendars) increase demand for Italian (and other languages) but they also help to keep students in our language programs. Of course available scholarships are too few and come nowhere near to meeting demand.

The National Italian-American Foundation (NIAF) in the USA is acutely aware of the long-term benefits of travel to Italy by American youth and considers the provision of travel scholarships to university students a major priority. In this respect the NIAF serves as an important model for the new Italian Australian Institute.

Conclusion

In my view everyone benefits from a greater focus on Italian in Australia’s universities. With respect to academic Italianists, I think we would all share the following hopes:

First that one day there will be across the nation’s universities as many students enrolled in Italian as there are in French. But student numbers are only part of the positive equation. I also agree with others at this conference have called for the greater concentration of Italian in larger departments with more staff to reduce workloads and to ensure that high quality teaching and research in Italian studies can be achieved.  Amidst all the difficulties confronting languages in the university sector, I have already pointed to positive signs in at least a few places, such as my own university. At the University of Melbourne: the number of students studying Italian has continued to expand over the long term – a very positive outcome. But French, like Japanese and Chinese, has also done exceptionally well, and the increase in French enrolments over the longer term has tended (at Melbourne and nationally) to more than match the increase in Italian. To borrow a term dear to economic rationalists, for Italian to be truly competitive both locally and nationally as a university language, the help and interest of the Italian community and authorities become ever more important.

Finally, my second hope is that today’s Italo-Australian youth draw benefit – in terms of not just of social progress and economic success but also in terms of self-esteem – from the value and appreciation Australia’s university-educated assign to Italian language and culture. I have already mentioned it but it worth repeating: there is nothing so self-affirming and good for self-worth, nothing more likely to generate to interest in your own heritage and language as the high levels of interest, appreciation and status others who are not like you give to these things.

References

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