Indigenous Australian Educational Issues

In Australia, Aboriginal people face many challenges.  Explore and describe at least 3 key issues that affect Educational Outcomes for Indigenous Australians.

Educational Outcomes are goals for learning and development upon which general education programs are based.  They can be defined as the skills, knowledge and values that students will require to be successful in the community, family and work.  Australia’s first people, the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders face many challenges that affect educational outcomes which contribute to the consistent poor results compared to that of their non-Indigenous counterparts.  Results from the national testing (NAPLAN) are well documented and illustrate how the achievement gap is significant between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students across all States, however in the Northern Territory where there are many remote and extremely remote areas it is particularly devastating sitting at fifty percent points or more (Ford 2013).  The contributing factors to the poor performance in education for Indigenous Australians are complex and varied; this paper will look at how high rates of absenteeism, poor teacher quality and retention, illness and disease can impact on educational outcomes for Indigenous Australians.  

High rates of absenteeism and poor levels of participation in Indigenous children is a key issue in Australian education and particularly with respect to remote communities as described by Taylor (2010).  There is evidence to support that attendance is strongly linked with performance, and that national testing results indicate that the disparity between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous continues to increase the longer students remain at school (Guenther 2013).  Despite focus generally being on the upper grades it is important to understand how absenteeism and intermittent attendance affect early childhood education (Taylor 2010).  Due to a lack of systematic reporting of absence within schools and sectors it is difficult to obtain reliable and comprehensive data, however results from the Western Australian government reported an unsatisfactory high number non attenders, with only thirty seven percent of Indigenous students considered to attend school regularly (Taylor 2010).  A four year ethnographic study in Western Australia tracking Aboriginal children from Kindergarten through to the first years of compulsory schooling found that Aboriginal children were the most consistent non-attenders and that where the transition to compulsory schooling might suggest more regular attendance, in fifty percent of the children the rate of absenteeism increased (Taylor 2010).  As described by Taylor (2010) children who were frequently absent displayed disparities in the basic numeracy and literacy skills, some had a tendency to stay on the edge of peer groups unable to form and maintain friendships which can be damaging to both their social wellbeing and overall school experience.  

The explanations for non attendance vary from suggestions of inadequate and culturally indifferent parenting, lack of relevance to the Indigenous students, geographic isolation and economic factors that all contribute to the non-attendance of Indigenous students at school (Taylor 2010).  In order to effectively address the issue it is necessary to understand the complexity around attendance, as argued by Jorgensen (2012) if the attendance issue could be addressed than a wide range of other issues can also be dealt with.  According to Jorgensen (2012) there has been criticism that the curriculum offered is of little significance to the Indigenous home cultures and therefore excludes them on this basis, the challenge is to provide quality curriculum that is relevant ensuring high educational outcomes as well as appealing to students to entice attendance.  Indigenous students in remote areas are uniquely disadvantaged, where standard Australian English is not their first language and the circumstances in which they are schooled differ to that of other Australians (Bradley et al. 2007).  In these remote areas there are fewer incentives to attend school furthermore complete secondary school, these communities have a lack of employment and many of the adults occupying these areas have not completed secondary education themselves ().  Aboriginal leaders who were educated by the missionaries are supportive of a solution to the issue of non attendance, as there is an understanding that whilst students are not attending school there ability to engage in education is compromised and as a result the cycle of social and health disadvantage will continue (Jorgensen 2012).

Absenteeism not only affects education outcomes for Indigenous students it can have a devastating effect on teachers, the daily battle faced by many teachers particularly in remote areas destroys their sense of identity and results in the feeling of failure (Jorgensen 2012).  Studies have revealed that the role of the teacher is a critical factor for delivery of quality learning (Jorgensen et al. 2010).    There tends to be the assumption that the quality of teacher is similar across schools and that the same level of education is offered, however this is not the case as not all teachers have the same level of experience or the same ability (De Plevitz 2007).  As described by Brasche & Harrington (2012) a significant number of the teachers working in rural areas are young new or recent graduates, furthermore most of these teachers are from white, middle class urban environments and are not familiar to the way of life in remote settings which results in a very high turnover rate.  Teacher retention rates in remote Central Australian schools are cited as between three to six months by Jorgensen (2012).  A high teacher turnover rate hinders the fostering of strong community relationships which is considered critical in establishing good practise in Indigenous education ().  The changeover of teaching staff impedes on the ability to develop and plan consistent quality curriculum particularly for early career teachers who have very limited experience to draw on (Jorgensen 2012). Furthermore, the lack in continuity for students has been shown to have negative affects their progress (Maher 2013)  

To combat the disadvantage in respect to teacher quality and retention new approaches to recruitment are required to target pre-service teachers and promote the benefits associated with working in remote areas ().  Many rural children and their families believe that their teachers lack interest in their education, this view point has been developed from the rapid turnover of staff in rural schools and can have adverse affects on the students where they become uninterested in learning from the teacher (Reid et al. 2010).  With the described problem of attracting and retaining quality teachers a program called Growing Our Own was developed in the Northern Territory where Indigenous assistant teachers who speak the local language work with the classroom teacher, the program aims to graduate qualified teachers who will stay in the remote communities and provide consistent teaching, positive results from this program can been seen where improved attendance has been reported within these schools (Maher 2013).  There is argument to suggest that greater numbers of indigenous peoples employed as educational workers will lead to equitable educational achievement for Indigenous children (Magga 2005).  Although despite government initiatives designed to address the imbalance and increase the number of Indigenous teachers, there has been limited success (Keddie et al. 2013).