The Australian Education Department is including classical Greek as a school subject in the primary and high school curriculum. Other languages to be included are Hindi, Turkish, classical Greek, Latin and Auslan (Australian sign language). Opposition to this plan has been expressed by Labor Senator Sue Lines is worried that this might not be the best use of taxpayers’ money as only 42 final-year students in Australia are currently learning classical Greek.

Chief Executive Rob Randall told a committee hearing that “making the curriculum available means it does make things more likely that people are going to do it.” Once given the chance to learn classical Greek from primary school, more students are likely to pursue it.