HSC language enrolments are falling but this school is bucking the trend

Year 12 student Thien Ngan Pham remembers arriving in Sydney from Vietnam three years ago and feeling out of place until she joined her school’s Vietnamese language class.

“My Vietnamese teacher helped me feel like I belonged,” she said. “And in class, when I studied, I felt excited because I could learn topics that relate to my life. It made me feel proud of who I am.”

Pham is one of 68 students at Cabramatta High School studying Vietnamese Continuers for the HSC.

This Saturday, she will join more than 5700 NSW students sitting an oral language exam, the first official exams of the 2025 HSC.

Cabramatta High School has 101 Year 12 students studying a language, more than any other NSW school. However, the proportion of students learning a language for the HSC is declining statewide.

In the 1960s, more than 40 per cent of Australian final-year students studied a language. But only 6 per cent of HSC students did so in 2024, down from 12 per cent in 2003. Researchers point to curriculum policies and concerns about subject scaling, as driving the trend.

At Cabramatta High School, where 96 per cent of students have a language background other than English, language learning isn’t just encouraged, it’s part of the school’s identity.

“The community and parents appreciate the opportunity for their child to study a language here at the school and we do our best to provide that,” said principal Lachlan Erskine.

“We’ve gone from previously offering one or two Vietnamese classes to three or four in the senior years.”

The school now also offers Khmer, after growing interest among students from Cambodia.

For many Cabramatta High students, studying a language is deeply personal.

“Vietnamese has been my first language, the language of my family, my community, and my childhood,” said HSC student Hoang Son Vu, who migrated to Australia in 2017.

International student Dac Huy Thuong Nguyen said the class helped him connect to his Australian peers.

“It’s interesting to learn how Vietnamese-Australian students relate to the language,” he said.

“I get to see how Vietnamese is used here in everyday life to contribute to Australia’s multicultural community.”

The connection is fostered by teachers who have walked the same path: Cabramatta High School Vietnamese language teachers Linh Nguyen and Steven Pham are both alumni.

Nguyen came to Australia in Year 11, and went on to top the state in Vietnamese Continuers.

Pham said it was his former teachers who inspired him to become a teacher himself.

“Students have a strong connection with their language teachers because we’re not just teaching the language, but how it relates to their migration experience,” he said.

A NSW Education Standards Authority spokesperson said new K–10 language frameworks would make it easier for schools to offer a wider range of languages and that they would encourage students continuing languages to HSC level.

The new frameworks also include opportunities for schools to offer languages that did not previously have a syllabus.

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