Higher education can be a gateway to better wages and a pathway to the middle class. For many Angelenos, a major obstacle to academic achievement is a language barrier. A new program, Los Angeles’ community colleges may be a game changer for immigrant students: job training classes in their native languages. LA Times higher education reporter Debbie Truong wrote about the new courses and joined Lisa McRee with the story.
Truong explained why teaching courses in languages other than English was not possible in California until 2016.
“In the 1980s, there was this really big push locally and nationally to make English the national language, born out of these sort of xenophobic fears that English would be displaced by other languages, like Spanish. That’s persisted for a while. In 2016, California lifted a ban on bilingual instruction, which has paved the way for dual language instruction in K-12 classes. And now you’re seeing some of that influence at the college level,” she said.
Several courses are available in multiple languages.
“It’s not just home health care classes. Los Angeles community colleges are also providing courses to train people to become automotive technicians. They’re training people in child care development. A lot of these sort of like vocational courses where there is high demand for folks,” she said.
The Los Angeles Community College District surveyed 2,500 of its students and found that a majority spoke a language other than English at home and would be interested in taking a bilingual class.
The bilingual courses are free for students. Truong explained how that system will be maintained long term.
"[It's] really up in the air. The community college district right now is figuring out the future of these programs. They want to expand it greatly so that one day students will be able to get their associate's degree and take classes only in whatever language they're comfortable in. And the cost of that is still is still hazy," she explained.
Watch the full interview above.
Watch "LA Times Today" at 7 and 10 p.m. Monday through Friday on Spectrum News 1 and the Spectrum News app.