Joe, one explanation for the increase in numbers may well lay within the latest census figures. The latest figures showed a 50% increase in the number of people identifying as indigenous over the previous increase. So those numbers would flow on to enrolments in schools. As I have said previously, those indigenous people may well have already been going to post secondary schools, but not identifying as indigenous. Whatever the reason, I'm happy to see the improvement although I would be a lot happier if it translated to improved figures for remote students.
As far as indigenous people doing their own thing, well I have to agree with that. Despite the misinformation given out by some, I have personal knowledge of movements by indigenous people around the country back at least 90 years ago. My father in law and his brother travelled from far North QLD, through NT and into the Kimberley looking for work. The brother ended up in the NT, one of the first Aboriginal people to hold a pastoral lease, on a large cattle station, in the 50s, and went on to become, at the time, the richest Aboriginal person in Australia.
My husband travelled around W.A. and the NT, working his way from place to place, at a time before he had citizenship.
My brother in law, before he had citizenship rights, bought a block of land in Broome and built a house for his family. He was a qualified carpenter and worked as a ship builder on pearling luggers for 40 years.
These are just a few examples, personal experiences of mine. There are many, many other examples of obviously Aboriginal people getting on and doing their own thing long before the existence of any culturally appropriate agencies and departments. And they did it alone, without any government assistance.

I have to say this again, and I am glad to see that Loudmouth is on the same page. Perhaps it is time we stopped being politically correct and redfined who is classified as indigenous. I have two Irish grandfathers, but I don't classify myself as being Irish. A significant percentage of these Aboriginal graduates couldn't give a stuff about what is happening to those still in the tribal areas.

Sooner, rather than later, those still in the tribal areas are going to have to learn to live as the white man does. I used to live at Batchelor in the N.T. It was a nice tidy little town when it was occupied by the white mine workers from Rum Jungle. Now that it is occupied by Aboriginals it is becoming a wasteland. It surely isn't difficult to learn to be tidy.

David

Apologies to all. I meant to write, grandfather in law, not father in law. Old age is such a disappointment!

but surely not in 36,000 cases.
Loudmouth,
Well, it wouldn't surprise me though if it was the case in 30,000 cases. In my area the situation is thus; An indigenous gets a position, then an outside pen pusher is employed to cover for the former & then a third, a bureaucrat is employed to cover up the fact of the situation on the two former. Then, the indigenous is praised for doing a great job.
The local paper is full of reports of such success stories with certificates & awards handed out faster than they can print them. So, I'd say 30,000 is probably a fairly realistic figure.

Individual, my experience in the health sector with respect indigenous qualifications versus ability has not been a positive one. The training and employment of Indigenous health workers has been one of the areas, along with education, that has failed miserably.
I have worked with health workers who were barely literate, in any language. They had very basic training at an Indigenous facility then released upon the community, with no hands on experience in a standard health setting, like a hospital, and given powers way beyond their abilities.
Patients are frequently misdiagnosed, symptoms not recorded, drugs administered, including antibiotics and all by someone with absolutely no knowledge of anatomy or physiology and the inability to read medical text books or drug information sheets.
The white nurses in the communities keep the clinics running and people alive, in the main part. Even after 30 years of health workers in communities, the clinics still totally depend on white staff to maintain the health of the residents.
Initially, the intention was to have health workers heavily involved in health education and preventative medicine but this has been an abject failure and in most cases, not all, but most, the health workers act as liaison officers for the nurses. At an exorbitant rate of pay.
One incident I tell people about. I had to phone a remote clinic to see if they had received an important fax. The Indigenous woman who answered the phone stated " fax, I don't know nothing about faxes. I'm the manager here. I'll get you one of the nurses."
It has always been my stance that health workers should receive the same training as registered nurses if they are to be put in such important positions. The same goes for teachers.

Hi Bren,

Thanks for your opinion about that period of 'stagnation'. A few facts:

Until 2000-2005, the great majority of Indigenous students were Special-Entry students, usually mature-aged. Their average (median) age at commencement was around thirty. So students coming onto study in, say, the 1980s, could have been born in the forties or earlier: I worked with a couple of students, later graduates, who were born in the mid-thirties. In the 1990s, it was not uncommon for many students to have been born in the 1950s. 'Median' means a wide spread, Bren.

So even in the early 2000s, many students, particularly mature-aged students in Indigenous-focussed diploma courses, would have been born in the 1960s or early seventies.

The median commencement age of Australian students generally is higher than you might think – around 24. With the rapid rise in the numbers of Indigrenous students finishing Year 12, the median age of commencing Indigenous students has probably come down now to 26 or even 25. But let's say 24. This suggests that the median Indigenous student commencing study in 2013 was born in the late eighties, 1988, just as the boom (which can be easily seen in the Census figures for each age-group) was getting going. 'Median' means that there were as many Indigenous commencers born before 1988 and after it.

As school-leavers come to predominate commencements, the median age will go down, and the 'median year of birth' will more rapidly come forward. If the median age by 2020 falls to twenty years, then the median birth-year for commencers will be 1999 or 2000, and the birth-boom will have well and truly have hit university age.

Graduates tend to be older than commencers, by at least the length of their courses, so that birth-boom won't affect graduate numbers fully until around 2022-2023. The decade after that will seem relatively massive numbers of graduates.

Yes, there was some re-identification – I suspect that it tends to happen under Labor, and the opposite under the Coalition – as well as better enumeration of Indigenous people. As well,

[TBC]