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The Forum > Article Comments > Education the key to living in two worlds > Comments

Education the key to living in two worlds : Comments

By Sara Hudson, published 8/3/2011

Many Aboriginal people believe that successful, hardworking and Aboriginal are mutually exclusive terms.

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Agreement !

Those opposing education, learning, recognition and most of all participation within our wider Australian community, often those seeking benefit from others denial, others failing to achieve their potential.

Failure by Commonwealth -particularly in the NT, NTG and some state governments within their states, linked to their ongoing gross refusal to make Land Trusts - the legal owners of "Traditional" lands accountable as other landowners for their ongoing refusals to satsify basic tenancy standards, failure to provide people living in these communities legal rights as leases, leases are keys to financial ability to take advantage of opportunities to improve things for themselves.

Excuse given: but giving people leases gives them rights !

Residents in these communities need broadband, with most to gain through participation, learning, communicating, doing their own banking, promoting own cultures, yet most will miss out.

Those with most to gain, lose again...

Is hard to enjoy the benefits, such as following this forum, on 50kbs dial u
Posted by polpak, Tuesday, 8 March 2011 9:02:02 AM
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Solid concept, well worth giving a broad application and seeing where it leads. Certainly it can do no worse than the cumulative garbage policies both sides have inflicted on the aboriginal people over the years.

If it could be hammered out that adopting modernised and educated lifestyles can be done without abandoning cultural roots, the entire problem could unravel itself overnight.
Posted by Jai, Tuesday, 8 March 2011 12:10:33 PM
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Education is important, but NOT the key to living in two separate worlds.

The history and culture of indigenous people has contributed little to this country.

In 1788, European settlers arrived to an environment little different from what one could find in some parts of the outback in 2011, with the exception of transplanted housing. Nomadic practices are still evident supplemented by social welfare schemes which, if carefully analysed, were obviously designed to make the indigenous people, 3% of our population, the same as the other 97%. If, as stated in this article, 60% of indigenous people now live in the cities, then perhaps that may be the reason for the failure of government schemes over 223 years.

What has Australia gained from indigenous people?
Then, what has been given to them, rightly or wrongly?
Dependence on ill-considered and highly unsuccessful social programs; bucketloads of money, year after year; transplanted housing settlements; a perception that more of the same is all they can expect; special health / education efforts with little in the way of overall improvement of life expectations; a continued emphasis on the differences between the two cultures.... an expansion of the ‘them and us’ identities, and on it goes. The result?

Almost no progress..

The ridiculous reference to learning from Jews, is just another strange suggestion from the so-called ‘prophet’ of indigenous thought, Noel Pearson. What can be learned from Jews is far better not learned as the world is realising, daily.
Better if he had identified the similarities between indigenous people in other countries such as the New Zealand Maori, 12% of the population and as in Australia, with 60% living in the urban areas, but a respected race in their own country The Maori identity is important to the Maori people in the most critical way...... self-esteem. The NZ multi-cultural society, in which it is possible for each culture, Maori, European, Pacific Islander and others to live side by side in harmony, is proud of its overall race relations record.

The key is self esteem and that comes from within.
Posted by Rhys Stanley, Tuesday, 8 March 2011 12:23:45 PM
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A refreshingly hard-hitting and compassionate article. I would certainly endorse Sara's observation that

"being well educated needn't equate with the loss of a person's cultural identity. Indeed, it is unlikely that Aboriginal university graduates somehow feel less 'Aboriginal' after graduating."

In fact, I would go further and claim that many, if not most, Indigenous graduates become stronger in their Indigenous identity, more rigorous and systematic if you like. Often, they are able to approach it consciously for the first time, once they have become familiar with higher education and its methods of study and exploration.

Rhys, no offence but I think you are talking through your hat, to put it politely - what you write has little bearing on city pople and certainly little on Indigenous university students (currently around 12,000) and graduates (currently around 26,500, or one in ten Indigenous adults, overwhelmingly in the towns and cities). No progress ? From one Census to the next (2001-2006), Indigenous university graduate numbers rose by more than 50 % - if that's not progress, you've got me.

Noel Pearson is one of the most original thinkers in this country at the moment. You may not agree with his points of view, but I do think he is spot-on in his esteem for Jewish education and child-rearing.

Your reference to Maori is instructive: the proportion of Maori university graduates is not much higher than it is for Indigenous Australians, if at all - which is amazing, given that there have been Maori university graduates since the 1890s, but Indigenous graduates here only since about 1950, and very few before 1980. Indigenous Australians are not so diverted and restricted to studying Indigenous-oriented courses as in New Zealand, which may be relevant to their participation.

This all raises the question: is Indigenous participation at universities, set to double in the next ten years, a real game-changer in Indigenous policy ? Perhaps, THE game-changer ?

After all, is there any other aspect of the Gap which is closing as fast as participation and graduation in university education ?


Joe Lane
Posted by Loudmouth, Tuesday, 8 March 2011 5:30:42 PM
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Elitism is the current issue dividing Australia, be in mainstream or among Indigenous communities. Knowledge is power. But when it means that it detracts from the goal of working together and putting equality as an action on the table, in work and play, we have a problem.

I agree with the author, "being well educated needn't equate with the loss of a person's cultural identity. Indeed, it is unlikely that Aboriginal university graduates somehow feel less 'Aboriginal' after graduating."

The problem is systemic. The cloning of practices promote a growing elitism that is in itself transfers a cultural practice sweeping all corners of this continent. Even among NGO's, especially with the growth of 'peak bodies' there are new definitions of "us & them" evolving. We are dealing a widening spreas of this kind of culture in ways assigned to expatriates, within our own country.

Alarming is the way people from communities who wander to townships from their communities are addressed. It is as if they have few rights as citizens and similar to the way we treat refugee boat people.

I find it a great tragedy that 'those who suffer most from the lack of understanding of human rights are those who are worst off in our society'. It disturbs me that the Indigenous people are continually blamed and subject to community anger for the lack of improvement in social and economic conditions, and the ad-hoc ways development policies have been implemented over the past thirty plus years.

I dispute Noel Pearson's ridiculous comment about Jews. While the Jews may have once embraced an "all" cultural approach to life, this surely needs to be questioned today. If you are not concerned about the Jewish settlement program, then perhaps you might want to review the shocking story where "1,200 Israeli-born children have been told they’re not welcome in Israel, because they're not Jewish".

http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/about/id/600957/n/Identity-Crisis

If this is not enough, you might look up the story in Melbourne where orthodox Jews are screaming because of Islamic prayer being practiced near their neighborhood.

We need an "Open Door" policy everywhere.

http://www.miacat.com/
Posted by miacat, Tuesday, 8 March 2011 9:42:14 PM
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Miacat,

Yes, you're right - there is a strong sense of elitism in some Indigenous organisations, and in the minds of many alpha male (and some female) Indigenous hot-shots, especially of the first graduates.

But the encouraging level of participation of Indigenous people in higher levels of education, whether the individual participants are aware of it or not, precludes the development of an elite. Think of it this way:

* current Indigenous university student numbers (around 12,000) plus university graduate numbers (about 26,500) make up nearly a sixth (= 38,500) of all Indigenous adults (250,000).

* this year, commencing tertiary (university) numbers are likely to be around 5,500. The median age of Indigenous commencing students is still higher than the Australian average at about 26. How many Indigenous people in the 26-year-old age-group, i.e. born in 1984-5 ? About 9,000. Commencing numbers are thus about 60 % of those of the median age-group. So THE EQUIVALENT OF more than 60 % of the median age-group commenced university study this year. Much more than half.

* Yes, it's true, about a fifth of those commencers were already graduates, enrolling in post-graduate courses. Another 5 or 10 % were students transferring from another course, or re-enrolments. But still, the equivalent of some 40 % of the median age-group commenced university study for the very first time. 40 %. 40 % is not an elite, Miacat.

* That means that close to half of all young Indigenous people - from now on - can expect to enrol at university, at some time in their lives.

* Women are participating at twice the rate of men. If men participated at the same rate as women, the proportion of young Indigenous people who will, at some time, enrol at university, rises to 50-55 %.

In other words, more than half of all young Indigenous women can currently expect to go to uni at some time. If men participated similarly, more than half of them could expect to participate as well.

The days of the production of a new, small Indigenous elite are long gone.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Tuesday, 8 March 2011 10:14:58 PM
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Aborigines and hard work?
You've been reading too many jokesw min sher bad taste.

socratease
Posted by socratease, Tuesday, 8 March 2011 11:44:34 PM
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Quite a good article:
I particularly like the idea of having schools that teach both English and the local language(s), that would actually go a long way (part of the truancy problems was Aboriginal kids avoiding school due to feeling unwelcome or cultural compromises by conforming).

The concept of schools that incorporate their culture is good, although extra-hour schools to achieve this are not such a good idea-
The reason being that a LOT of indigenous children (most particularly those in remote regions) simply have trouble getting to school (which plays a large part also to partial truancy) and extended school hours would place extra pressure on them and increase missed hours.
Generally I am actually convinced this multicultural education can actually be achieved by altering lessons in the normal school hours (especially primary school, where they could simply learn about culture in the time frames normally reserved for singing humpty dumpty in a typical Australian school).

Generally these suggestions would go a fair way into fixing many of the problems, and I am quite impressed.
Posted by King Hazza, Wednesday, 9 March 2011 9:30:32 AM
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First of all lets not say kids have trouble getting to school, i take that you mean by distance. There's many an indig; driving 4 wd vehicles.
School means you are trying to change their coulture. That is how the elders see it.
To teach indig language in schools, i take that you mean different lingo for each tribe. OR do we select one lingo fits all.
This idea makes more problems than it will ever settle.
Posted by 579, Thursday, 10 March 2011 4:18:15 PM
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