Hi again, Joe,
No, I don't think divergence is a problem. Nor is there any unbridgeable chasm. Why not look at it as diversity and celebrate it?

Not all Aboriginal people aspire to or would benefit from university education, just as not all people from any other background in Australia or elsewhere aspire to or would benefit from higher learning. For those who do - fantastic!

Our community will be the richer if we accept that education for life can take many forms. Until recently this included remote Indigenous communities teaching traditional stories in language along with formal studies of 'regular' subjects in English. Surely, more will be gained than lost if Indigenous leaders in the remote communities are allowed to recover this form of education.

Hi Alan,

Back in the mid-nineties, I ran career aspirations workshops for Aboriginal kids across SA and in western NSW. The powers-that-be put the kybosh on it after acouple of people complained that 'not all Aboriginal kids can go to university'. Since then, I've taken that to be code for 'I personally don't think ANY Aboriginal kid can go to university.' Perhaps you did not mean it this way ?

As it happened, we elicited career aspirations from around 1200 kids which ranged from unskilled work to the highest skill levels, through TAFE to university education. The range of careers that the kids ALREADY had their eyes on was amazing, and we were working with kids From Grade 6 up to Year 12: we accidentally went down to Grade 4 at one school and those kids were just as interested. One little girl I talked to after a session wanted to be a nurse: even though it turned she was still only in Grade 3, she was rapt with a little CES brochure I gave her about nursing.

So, no offence Alan but PLEASE, never say that 'Not all Aboriginal people aspire to or would benefit from university education'. And what do you mean by 'not all ..... would benefit from university education' ? Did you benefit from it ? Have I ? Of course, we have, so why assume that others won't ? It's not our call.

TBC

[cont]

Alan,

Perhaps we are looking at different aspects of the same elephant, and writing at cross-purposes. I agree with you that people should be able to practice their traditions - I don't think there is anybody stopping them, quite the reverse. But for all that, people need employment on the one hand, and access to services on the other. With proper training and education, including professional education, it's win/win !

Why do people assume that the smaller a community is, the fewer skills it requires ? A community of 300 people would have to have access to pretty much the same range of professionals as the million people in Western Sydney - dentists, pilots, engineers, plumbers, podiatrists, pharmacists, etc. So even the most remote settlement needs to have access to a range of professionals - why shouldn't they be local people - and yes, those professionals and their communities most certainly could 'benefit from university education'. Otherwise, do they depend on outsiders forever - how is permanent dependence self-determination ? Or is self-determination a con job ?

The Indigenous situation as a whole is very dynamic, moving, changing, emerging - it is not static, so the word 'divergence' is not just some charming and quaint description of 'different ways', it conceals the dangerous possibility that different Aboriginal populations are rapidly moving off in different directions, with the threat that the spatial, cultural and political gap between the remote 'traditional' on the one hand and the urban university-educated on the other, will become a chasm.

People can walk and chew at the same time, however: people should have access to services, which ideally they themselves are professionally educated to deliver - and they may also be able to practice aspects of their traditions, at the same time, much the same as a Buddhist or Muslim doctor or engineer or architect can do both, perform her professional duties AND observe the principles of her belief system. So, yes, there is the slimmest of chances that the gap can be bridged, but not if university education, and tertiary-trained indigenous people are denigrated.