Considering the assistance available to any indigenous I'm surprised the number of enrolments & outcomes is not higher. I wish non-indigenous kids would get so much opportunity.
If the mother is indigenous or white & the father indigenous then there's help everywhere you turn however if the father is non-indigenous it's all denied. It is severely racist on the authorities' part.
Oh, sorry I didn't realise I'm not supposed to disclose that.

I am a racist, and I think it self evident that most black ethnicities have mean intelligence IQ's significantly lower than whites and Asians. That does not mean that there are no smart blacks, but that whatever the ratios of low, median, to high IQ that exist in whites and Asians, are not in the same proportions in most black ethnicities. I obtained my (illegal) attitudes after reading that monumental scientific work "The Bell Curve", personnel observation, and the fact that the only excuse the liberals could dream up to explain endemic black dysfunction was the racist premise that, "blacks are victims of white oppression."

Examples of black dysfunction which could only be caused by low intelligence, keep surfacing. This article is another one. The fact that aboriginal children get "indigenous education" as opposed to the same education given to every other child, clearly cross connects with my premise.

The European system of education just happens to be the world standard which is adopted by every advanced and successful culture. If some cultures can not keep up, then what does that tell you about the concept of equal intelligence?

You use the example of "aborigines" obtaining high academic standards. One "aborigine" who sued Henry Bolt over Bolt's assertion that he was not aboriginal, claimed that the was 1/64th aboriginal "and the rest is mongrel." Like Bolt, I can not accept that a person like that Tasmanian "aboriginal" activist who has blue eyes and blond hair, is "aboriginal" at all.

Before you accuse me of contempt for aborigines, I deny that. My position is, "let the truth be told, though the heavens may fall."

The reason why the lives of full blooded tribal aboriginal people are not improving, despite enormous investment by state and federal governments, is because we have done away with the paternalistic programs of the past which took for granted that people barely out of the stone age were minors, who were unable to make mature decisions as to their own welfare.

We gave them "Equality", the right to drink, and we wondered why we got catastrophe.

Joe Loudmouth, I agree. I was sticking to topic, referring only to the problems in remote communities in which there is a reluctance to go to school - especially primary - as they see no relevance in it.
If our city primary schools were staffed with people of other cultures for whom English is a second language - people who did not share our literary, mythological, cultural heritage, and who considered themselves and their way of life superior, then it is more than likely the kids would opt out.
Once hooked, of course, when the kids from remote communities see the value of educatiuon and have had some success - because that's the crux of the problem - nothing succeeds like success, then the normal, mainstream education is the way to go.
Individual & LEGO, your last posts are sad inditements of your own education and upbringing. But I realise there's no point in arguing, people will believe what they want, despite the facts. If it makes you feel better to believe you're part of a superior race, then it would be cruel to disabuse you.

Hi ybgirp.

"My culture and upbringing" taught me that all races were equal, and I was once very condemnatory of racists. But what stuck in my craw was the constant refrain from so called "anti racists" that all black dysfunction everywhere, was the product of white oppression.

Now, my culture cannot train me to recognise racism, and then get upset when I see it as plain as day in the statements of the so called "anti racist" movements. One aboriginal activist who was quoted in "The Australian" newspaper, even claimed that the endemic corruption in ATSIC was all the white fellas fault, "because the government had approved the candidates."

Your own racism is very noticeable where you claim that aborigines are "a lot smarter than the invaders" and that white teachers are "foreigners." Yoohoo ybgirp, you can hardly wag your finger at "racists" if you are one yourself.

The "Intervention" by the Howard government (continued by the Labor government) looks proof positive to me that both sides of parliament are fully aware that tribal aborigines simply do not have the emotional maturity to manage their own finances.

It has been pointed out, over and over, that the primary problem with aboriginal dysfunction is alcohol. The right to drink alcohol was a product of the "equality" agenda so beloved of humanitarian egalitarians. Anyone who opposed aboriginal equality purely because they were horrified at what would happen if aborigines got the right to drink, were shouted down as "Racists!" From the appalling outcome of that policy today, could I opine that the "racists" were right all along?

Gemma was wearing her rose coloured glasses when she wrote this.

She is correct in that for education to have benefits, it needs to have relevance. Probably the reason some old subjects, Latin for instance, are no longer widely offered.

However for any kind of education to be effective you have to start with not the Educator but the Educatee ...

The child who is "School ready" has been reared in an environment where they've had sufficient nutrition for normal physical and neurological development. They also need to have been adequately nurtured by parents and/or carers to have gained social, language and living skills within a range commensurate with age.

If any or all these needs have been neglected and especially if the child suffers or been affected by poor health, Foetal Alcohol Syndrome or other congenital or birth related injury, he/she is at a gross disadvantage to start with. What's more, this disadvantage is likely to impact whole of life.

Adding to this, the child expected to attend school daily needs to have had sufficient sleep, clothes to wear and food in their belly. Even if the school environment was made as exciting as a Theme Park, children lacking these basics would not, could not cope with a 5 day week regime.

So before more money is wasted on educating more teachers, providing more classroom resources, examining, re-examining and re-designing the curriculum - the children must be in a position to be able to take advantage.

Whether Gemma likes or not - in many remote communities this is the main problem.

If I were to be spending the $$$, every school would have a kitchen, hired cook and weekly rations delivery to provide a nutritious breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack to these kids before anything else - plus a daily multi-vitamin pill. That would be an appropriate start AND a great incentive for kids to turn up daily. It would also probably be the most cost effective efficient way to improve the health of indigenous youngsters at same time.

Lego, you're an idiot and your views would be repugnant to decent Australians.

Aboriginal 'leaders' have a genius for inventing, and constantly re-inventing, the wonky wheel - something that didn't work the first time, or the second time, but that's about all they can come up with. So it is with so-called bilingual education, which has almost never been bilingual but only monolingual in the local language, the language of the teacher's aides. No wonder intelligent kids end up illiterate and innumerate.

What seems to have worked very well over the last decade - pace Gemma [see above paragraph] - is precisely rigorous and mainstream education:

* Indigenous university students have abandoned Indigenous-focussed courses.

* Indigenous women are now commencing standard university study at a HIGHER rate than NON-Indigenous Australian men, and at twice the rate of Indigenous men.

Perhaps the measure that we should be looking at, for improvements, is the ratio of Indigenous women's commencements to non-Indigenous Australian women's commencements - about 65 %, which would very roughly correspond to the different degrees of urbanisation and class differences.

The Indigenous population in remote settlements make up barely 10 % of the total Indigenous population. The great majority of them are in regular touch with local urban life. I live in hope that the young women will, out of sheer desperation, move into rural towns and semi-urban towns to find work and to seek out education opportunities, for themselves and/or for their children. There is not really any future in remote settlements the way they are being dominated these days by the drunks and bashers.

If something isn't working, give it a miss, find something else. I hope Gemma can spend some time in a remote settlement and realise how much of her words are just worn-out, but endlessly recycled, prattle.

Joe