wow ~! Aren't you in Australia Alicat? I had no idea Australia had so many Japanese or Chinese that they would make it compulsory...or is that because Australia does a lot of trade with Japan and China?
Over on this side it would be Chinese school on saturday's... not part of the cirriculum at public schools, just a heritage thing. And it is only required you take a language for graduating but you get to choose depending on what Teacher's they have hired and what language is then offered.
In Canada it used to be required to learn French...is it still that way Npixelz?