Australia’s English Problem: How to renew our once celebrated Adult Migrant English Program

Australia has a long and proud record of teaching English to migrants and refugees. It was the first – and, for many years, only – country to provide newcomers with fully funded Englishlanguage teaching. The Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP), established soon after World War II and after the first post-war migrants learnt English on the first boats to Australia, has been the flagship amongst a range of government services that try to ensure that migrants and refugees quickly find their feet, and their voice, in their new land.