Indigenous Education

Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian Continent and nearby islands. An indigenous Australian is whereby a person naturally belongs to a place in a sense of long-term family origins. Indigenous Australians in relation to education have been faced with many difficulties. Due to the indigenous history there has been many struggles for their culture. The invasion of the British in 1788 caused many injustices as the Aboriginals were driven away from their land or killed by diseases. Many of those who survived were forced into slavery or missionary camps where they were required to drop their culture and assimilate to the ‘white’ culture.

In relation to education Aboriginals were constantly discriminated due to the concept of ‘whiteness’. For David Roediger (1991: 13), ‘whiteness was a way in which white workers responded to  hear of dependency on wage labor and to the necessities of capitalist work discipline’.  For many decades, attention to issues of race and ethnicity has been a focusing problem on various minority groups. The ‘lacks’ of particular migrant and indigenous groups has become the focus of interventionist policies and practices, with new programs devised to help connect indigenous people to employment networks, or increase English language capacities (Fozdar & Wilding & Hawkins 2009).  Whiteness studies begins from the assumption that race is a social construction. This is heavily influenced in schools.

In relation to Indigenous students within schools, there is a conflict between the thoughts of parents and the educators. Parents believe that the schools and teachers within the school all influence the ability of indigenous students to participate and gain a positive learning. They have a concern that the teachers are not able to engage with the indigenous students and they are not positively supporting the students to stay at school. Teachers and educators within schools believe the Indigenous students lack of retention and ongoing absenteeism could potentially be due to the family atmosphere at home. Things like poverty n which parents won’t be able to provide for their kids to have food to take to school, families’ conflict with police, no right atmosphere to be able to do homework at home. These all could prevent indigenous students to have the encouragement to attend and stay at school to gain their education.

In order to overcome the concerns the article ‘Push to send indigenous children to boarding schools’ (Throwden 2013) states there is a push to take Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students out of their communities to send them to boarding schools to improve their education. Professor Langton says it is nothing radical, rather an idea that many Aboriginal families are already embracing. Due to racial differences many indigenous students find it difficult to gain an education due to racial discrimination. Many strategies have been put in place such as the Closing Gap strategy (Throwden 2013).

References:

·      Fozdar, F. & Wilding, R. & Hawkins, M. (2009). Race and Ethnic Relations. Oxford University Press Australia & New Zealand.

·      Throwden, E. (2009). ‘Push to send Indigenous children to boarding schools’. Retrieved on the 8/10/13

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-26/push-to-send-indigenous-children-to-boarding-schools/4541870