Students at the Tuggeranong Introductory English Centre celebrated the opening of their new, permanent building on Tuesday, alongside Education Minister Joy Burch, architect Yuri Leong and members of the education department.
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The new building at Wanniassa Hills Primary School, which caters for up to 45 students and three classes, is a stark contrast to its former self, with a dark room surrounded by high fences replaced with an open, light, colourful learning space.
Ms Leong said that, considering the migrant and refugee background of many of the students, the building needed drastic refurbishment.
"The previous facility had a lot of high fences and was really quite intimidating and imposing … it had a caged feel to it. So the idea was to open it up and create a warm and friendly learning environment, and contrast it from the existing school," she said.
Students in the IEC spend up to two terms learning English and the culture of Australian schools, before returning to their original classes. The students are from very mixed backgrounds: some are from asylum seeking families, some from migrant families, and some are the children of diplomats.
The centre's executive teacher Maria D'Souza said the class integrated well with the rest of the school, attending assemblies, school carnivals, and playing soccer with other classes at lunch.
But ultimately the children were there to improve their English.
"We can have up to 17 languages in here, with dialects in between, at any one time," Ms D'Souza said.
"But they're all so focused and keen to learn English."
Ms Burch expressed a strong desire for the centre to facilitate English classes for parents as well.
"This is a great facility, so I would really like to see this for adult education as well," she said.
"Parents [from immigrant, refugee, and new arrival backgrounds] would also benefit from learning English as a second or core language and so we will work with the school, look at partnerships with providers and try to have this as an adult centre for English learning as well."
Students 'graduate' from the program after 20 weeks, and can stay longer if necessary.
Every ACT teacher has been given a comprehensive guide to helping the students in mainstream classes as they continue their education.
