The business sector has called on the states and territories to back Prime Minister Julia Gillard's plan to give every student the chance to study an Asian language by 2025.
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And School Education Minister Peter Garrett will meet his state and territory counterparts tomorrow to urge them to support the plan, which will be tied to schools receiving extra funding.
The government's white paper, released on Sunday, says that all students will have access to studying at least one ''priority language'' - Chinese (Mandarin), Hindi, Indonesian and Japanese - throughout primary and high school by 2025.
Each state and territory would be responsible for administering their language programs, although changing their curriculum would be compulsory in return for more funding for the government and the non-government sectors.
Every Australian school must also be linked to an Asian school to support teaching priority of Asian languages by 2025, including by increased use of the national broadband network. The reforms will be built into the government's ambitious Gonski school reforms, which are being negotiated with the states and territories, and which the federal government wants to introduce from 2014.
The government says it is too soon to say how much the programs would cost, or how many new teachers would be needed to offer Asian languages to all students.
Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry employment, education and training director Jenny Lambert said: ''Turning vision into reality in the education and training system can often be the most difficult part.''
But she said the plan would lay the foundations for a strong Australian future in the so-called ''Asian Century''.
Kathe Kirby, the executive director of the Asialink and Asia Education Foundation at the University of Melbourne, said drastically expanding Asian language teaching was ''an ambitious goal'', but ''the right way to go''.
Australian National University Asian language teaching and learning expert Peter Hendriks agreed the goals were achievable, assuming they had bipartisan commitment.
''Rather than starting from scratch, we're actually starting from a pretty good position, I think,'' Mr Hendriks said. ''But it will take a lot of money and a long-term commitment.''
A spokeswoman for Mr Garrett said: ''The precise increase in teachers required will depend on the arrangements of each state, territory and education authority, including how they determine to run the language programs and what they currently have in place''.
