assimilation : becoming part of something greater, taking on the cultural and other traits of a larger group, the integration of new knowledge or information with what is already known.
Based on the dictionary meaning, aboriginals have assimilated into the dominant culture. How many really want to return to the exact life-style their aboriginal ancestors lived pre 1788? None. Those who do live in remote communities use as many modern amenities as they can. Why? Because who wouldn't?
The best way to keep people down is to perpetuate a myth that rural and remote areas can provide sufficient employment (that is not funded by government grants) when full time employment is the only viable alternative to dependence, to welfare, boredom and poverty.
The reality is those of non aboriginal descent also have to leave remote communities; so let's educate all kids so they can survive in the larger community. The better solution is to put money into all education, not just the pockets of a few kids.

Freethinker,

2Deadly wrote:
"You cannot treat everyone like an Australian because us mob who are not white keep getting told that we aren't. Man, what would I pay to be treated as an equal, do a google on "Peggy Macintosh" and 'whiteness' to find out about what it is like to be part of the power group in this country."

That was from an earlier quote on the page.

You will never know what it is like for a black Australian to live in a racist white middle class Country. Maybe you should go to another country that is predominately "pigment enhanced" and then come back and share your feelings. Better yet go to an Aboriginal community and live there for a few years without a power base, ie. money and communication with the outside world. That way you may forget that you still are a member of the dominate group.

Hopefully then you will have an awakening of why this country continues to be divided by colour and legal rights to country.

Where are you getting your info on TAFE courses, cheap car loans and cheap housing. Wow! I must move to your part of the country because I still pay full course fees, pay same interest rates for my car as well as renting without a discount. Those who have been given these 'benefit' are the same as others in the same income bracket....it is called EQUITY. Yet as mentioned before, I would gladly pay whatever you think is 'fair' on top of my taxes to keep the right to be Aboriginal and while your being generous, throw in a few years of life expectancy.

By the way, the Scottish never stopped having the right to be Scottish regardless of English occupation so why should 500 original Aboriginal nations stop resisting illegal colonial occupation. As well, this Tuesday many Australians will recognise the unsuccessful invasion of Turkish territory while failing to acknowledge the illegal invasion of this continent. Very strange...'less we forget' one of them, 'try to forget' the other.

Back to work,

Schools do not produce anything. Their "product" is not people. They provide a service, supposedly of education. However, unlike most other services, schools have the luxury of law that requires and compells people to accept their services, irregardless of whether the service is that wanted by its forced consumers, or its quality, content or the price of the service. This is just one of the ways in which schools are separated from the real world. Schools ought to be reimagined to make them relevant to life as it is now and for the future. Democratic, alternative, and progressive schools have pioneered this for years - but like many indigenous people, but to nowhere near the extent, these schools are marginalised and their lessons for society are disregarded.

The last thing that indigenous people need is more indocrination. If the service offered by schools was good, worthwhile, and satisfactory to its consumers, then the consumers would want to be there, because they could see a need for it. Preparation for life is not just about work, even though it is important to ensure people can be independent. If schools were doing their job, they would be supporting initiative, entrepreneurship, self disciplne and values that complement democratic life. Indeed, it would be only responsible to replicate democratic life and values - but they are nowhere like this, and fail dismally in this regard. Learning life skills and Australian democratic values that embrace the culture and ethnicity of young people will support their development and ability to not just go on to work or further study, but to create work and their own businesses. The creation of work by seeing and recognising what consumers need and then working at ways to fill those needs with products or services is what small and large businesses do all the time in our so called free enterprise based economy.

Regards, Derek Sheppard

Spending thousands of hours of personal time at school to learn how to become a worker for someone else is not what education ought to be about. It simply reinforces a belief system that individuals are disempowered individuals, the "poor bugger me", "I'm not good enough" syndromes that pervade throughout sections of Australian society. But Australia is a democracy. Individuals are powerful. They can effect change. They can and will do things for themselves, if they believe enough in themselves and the people around them. And their cultural origins and roots are part of this, as someone with Scottish ancestry, for instance, would acknowledge (Scotland, after hundred of years of suppression, and cultural denigration).

There is a huge untapped spirit, knowledge, along with ten of thousands of years of passed on experiences in indigenous people. At the very least, tourists, if not Australians, are seeking this. Tourism alone, as an industry, with all its needs of accommodation, food, information and experiences must provide big openings for indigenous entrepreneurship. We have in our midst the oldest surviving culture on this planet (with its mostly good and some bad aspects)- we ought to be embracing and celebrating this, not being derisory of the impacts on it of a mere 200 years of probably unlawful, but inescapable occupation with all the effects that it brings with it of alcohol, disease, social concepts, etc. Many non-indigenous Australians still do not know how to deal with these problems, probably in far greater numbers than there are of all the indigenous people.

The last thing Australia needs is more people leaving the country and regions to go to become city consumers whose load on the environment has become so great the environments around them are beginning to collapse (through lack of knowledge and experience, in just 200+ years, in this harsh Australian environment). Even for non-indigenous people it's hard to maintain their individual identity in cities, let alone indigenous people whose cultural roots and identities have been challenged for so long.

Regards, Derek Sheppard

It is pretty hard to do any self-improvement, or help your community to improve its living conditions and heath, if you are illiterate, innumerate, and these days not computer literate and have a belief more in superstition than of basic science. It also doesn't help when people fail to learn basic ideas of analysis and interpretation of facts.

Our schools are failing to provide these skills to many people,not through bad teaching, lack of funds or inappropriate curriculum, but because some do-gooders have spent so much time agreeing with various ethnic groups that such white-centred ideals are culturally inappropriate and not necessary.

In many black African societies education, in the western sense, is seen as absolutely vital for their children and for their future, regardless of other cultural values, to the extent that many children are educated in what we would call 'private' schools where basic school fees are paid.

These children don't have to be paid to attend school, they do so willingly and walk for enormous distances in order to get even basic education. Those lucky enough to get the opportunity for secondary school embrace it willingly, with a passion. These people have also been colonised, many are oppressed, live in absolute desperate poverty that make a recipient of Australian government welfare seem rich. Many are affected by civil war and violence. But education is still seen as vital by many members of these societies.

Why is this so in African indigenous populations, but not here in Australia?

@Hamlet

Thats because most Africans believe in a good Education,crowded classrooms or not, education is important.