Japan Australia Exchange Program

2006 is the Australia-Japan Year of Exchange and many events are planned throughout Australia.

Girraween High School is a selective high school, and is one of the few public schools that have native Japanese teachers in NSW. We have been running our sister school program since 1994. This year, it is the 13 th year of this beneficial program, and nine students and one teacher from Hisai High School (our sister school in Japan) have visited our school from 12th March to 26 th March.

This program is contributing greatly to fostering students’ intercultural understanding and sense of diversity in this multicultural society. While we often hear some news about racial conflictions in the media all over the world, we can’t stop help but feel positive of our future when we see young Australians being so accepting and understanding towards different cultures and languages.

Ms C Akutsu

Teacher of Languages

General

• The exchange agreement was signed in November 1994.
• The first exchange visit took place in March 1995.
• Since then every March (during Hisai’s end of term period) 9 students and 1 teacher arrive from Japan, whilst in September (during the NSW holiday period) 9 students and 1 teacher from Girraween High visit Hisai.
• Each visit is of 2 weeks duration.
• Both students and visiting teacher are hosted in private homes.
• During the visits the visiting students and teacher attend school where they are involved in many activities, sometimes with the host students, other times as a separate group. eg. regular lessons, culture lessons, language lessons and sport.
• Excursions are also organised to places of scenic or cultural interest.
• In general the 2 weeks pass too quickly and there are many tears shed at the respective airports as newfound friends have to head for home.