Like Alan, I'm totally against special Aboriginal Degrees. I've seen some disastrous results in remote communities from" qualified" health workers and teachers. Some even life threatening.
And none of my indigenous kids or grandkids have ever enjoyed doing Aboriginal Studies" that were injected into school or TAFE courses. It seems people who write these courses don't talk to Aboriginals in remote areas because they seem to have very different concepts to those who actually are traditional and remote people.
As far as help for the disadvantaged kids, I can't speak for anywhere but NT and the Kimberley but there are still bridging courses and lots of support for indigenous kids who haven't completed high school. Mind you, the format of the classes and the type of help supplied is totally at odds with what the kids really need but that's another story.
Indigenous organisations run their own courses that only run for a few weeks, contain few requirements for literacy and total fail to help get these kids into jobs.
From where I sit, the problem seems to be that kids have no concept of reliability, punctuality and accountability. Those who don't achieve come from long term welfare homes where they have never had role models to show them that an education and or job require going to bed at a reasonable hour, getting up early five days and week and actually turning up for school and work every single day.
Most of the kids drop out after a few weeks or even a few days, unable to cope with the expected reliability.
If we are ever going to help these kids get a successful education we need to teach them consistency from the beginning of the school years and keep reinforcing that for the next 12 years.
How to achieve that with the parents these kids have is something I don't have an answer to

I find aboriginal degrees and the following inane wastes of taxpayer money.

http://www.100positivepolicies.org.au/indigenous_rangers_fact_sheet

Once land rights and ownership are ceded, it should not be the taxpayer's responsibility to employ people to be custodians of what they own.

It does nothing to bring people into the true reality of their 21st century existence. It's just high class welfare with superannuation and workers comp insurance thrown in.

Hi Big Nana & Luciferase,

I'm sure that there are individuals in rural and remote areas who desperately want to do something, to develop some sort of small business which actually requires effort, AND have a deep love of their country, deep enough to want to stay no matter what. With all my heart, I wish them the best.

Native title and ILUAs now extend over such huge swathes of country that even the two thousand unqualified rangers would have a hard time just to maintain the health of their environments. Feral animals and plants, water quality, control of bush-bashers and trail bikes and random shooters, control of tourists, fencing, burning-off, re-vegetation, and a myriad other problems - which would need fully qualified people in great numbers, are massively beyond them. So frankly, I don't think people have a clue about 'caring for country'.

Having employment in remote areas, even essentially no-work jobs, might keep people 'out there', especially if they have plenty of Toyotas but is probably just another round of window-dressing.

My son was probably one of the first Indigenous qualified conservation managers in Australia, very dedicated and hard-working, but he is very pessimistic about that massive 2,000-person program. Watching a group of 'rangers' loading up the Toyota with firewood the other ay, then going out and taking water samples, and temperature measurements, he was laughing at the token nature of it all. Clearly, he thought, the main work for the day was that load of firewood.

I recall my wife going to a rangers' conference back in about 2002, and passionately speaking to the Indigenous rangers about coming on to proper study. They all sat back, arms folded, glowering and, sure enough, not one took up her offer. Why the hell should they ? They already had it sweet.

Every time well-intentioned policy-makers set up such a program, it means that properly qualified people can't do the job, there's no room for them, and that, eventually, the job won't really get done. We'll see.

[TBC]

[ontinued]

Meanwhile, statistically, somehow, the majority of young urban Indigenous people from working families, perhaps the great majority, will go on to university and enrol in mainstream, degree-level (and post-grad) courses. Coming from the city, they will want to stay there, where the best opportunities are. Some racist will demand that they go out to be with their 'people' whether they like it or not, and they won't. I think those days are also gone. So two and then three, then four thousand of them will be graduating every year, at least a third of them will go on to post-grad study, in the fields of their own choosing.

So two pathways: is the urban-education-to-employment pathway causing any problems ? No, not for the policy-makers. The welfare pathway ? Yes, indeed. So as you say, Big Nana, how to get people to make the transition ? How can they, if in the first place they never experience any sort of environment which is conducive to education higher than Grade Two or Three ? If their parents never experience work ? In short, if people have no way of perceiving the link between education and employment ? School is for kids, it's child-minding, while (so they've heard) work is for grown-ups: chalk and cheese.

So people might get positions as unqualified rangers, but without necessarily understanding that it is supposed to be work, sustained work, eight hours each day of effort, mostly out of the Toyota slogging away chopping out pest plants, fencing, or laying baits for foxes, cats, dogs, goats, donkeys, wild cattle, horses, camels etc. So those jobs won't get done.

Cheers,

Joe