Anthony Albanese will pledge $25m to help more than 90,000 students learn a second language through community programs delivered after school hours.
The funding will support about 600 community schools across Australia, which help students learn or maintain a second language.
About $5m of the funding will go toward specialist Asian languages to help students become fluent in languages like Mandarin, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Korean.
The Prime Minister is set to make the announcement in Melbourne, where he will continue campaigning on Saturday.
Mr Albanese said the funding boost to help native and non-native speakers develop a second language
Asian languages in particular would help students expand their career opportunities with major trading partners across the region.
Feel like giving the politicians a rating this Federal election?
Our Pollie Rater lets you do just that.
Rate the politicians
“We live in the greatest country in the world and that is in part due to the people and their cultures from all nations on earth who call Australia home,” he said.
“Our diversity is our nation’s strength – we’re supporting more Australian families to stay close to their culture with community language schools for 90,000 students in 84 languages.
“Only Labor has a plan to build Australia’s future.”
The language programs are available to students from kindergarten to Year 12, and are taught either after school, or on weekends.
The funding announcement comes as Labor is attempting to retain the outer-Melbourne seats of Chisholm and prise Menzies from the Liberals.
In NSW, the Coalition are also attempting to win back Bennelong and Reid in Sydney’s north west and Western Sydney.
Mr Albanese was the first major party leader to visit the crucial blue-ribbon seat of Menzies on Monday, with Liberal MP Keith Wolahan suffering a 8.8 per cent swing against him due to backlash from Chinese-Australian community against the Coalition in 2022.
The redistribution of the seat has expanded the electorate to take in Box Hill, which has one of the most prominent Australian Chinese communities in Australia, with the electorate deemed to be nominally Labor on a wafer-thin margin of 0.4 per cent.
Doncaster-based lawyer Gabriel Ng, who is of Chinese Singaporean heritage, will contest the seat for Labor.
