I fail to believe reports that 'quick fix' literacy programs delivered by inexperienced students who could fly in and out of remote Indigenous communities for a semester, can really make a difference in a durable way to the engagement of Indigenous students in English literate practices. This sounds like a 'Howard flies in the troops' solution.

There are many many questions to be asked of such programs - are considerations of how literacy is a socially and culturally situated practice given any consideration? Whose literacy is being delivered? Whose purpose does it serve?

The article is correct when it says 'In Indigenous communities it is all about the teachers' - how they engage with the community, their sensitivity and understanding of culture and language diversity, their ability to live and function well as an effective teacher in complex and hugely disadvantaged remote contexts. It is no place for inexperienced and culturally insensitive teachers.

Dr Jan Connelly

University of New England

I am very far away from being any expert on education, however...

Miners get paid very, very highly to live and work in remote areas. If there were another solution to attract people to work in the outback, the mining companies would have discovered it already. So it is the only solution.

Wages to teachers need to be doubled or even tripled city rates. Ditto police and nurses. Not just aboriginal communities, all remote areas.

there are many ironies re education, the current federal government approach, and the rights of indigenous australian children to an education, and to access education. i have never yet met an indigenous australian parent who did not wish for her/his child to have a 'european' education and to access it. the problem is that racism exists within schools, militating against indigenous australian children's educational choices and chances. indigenous australian children have a right to have their own cultural identity affirmed through education. this can be done through two-way education - affirmation of cultural identity and cultural education, along with european education. for example, learning science in the bush through observing animals in their habitat and trees/plants etc in their native environment makes more sense than cutting up rats and rabbits in a laboratory. indigenous australians are often accused of being 'itinerant' or 'perpatetic' (and hence blamed for missing out, or their children's missing out, on education) whereas it is too frequently teachers in remote and country locations (for example) who are itinerant or peripatetic. many, many teachers do a good job, but some can use time in the territory to assist them in being promoted up the ladder - elsewhere. every serious and sustained effort to ensure indigenous australian children have their right to education affirmed through non-racist teaching and learning processes - applicable to both indigenous and non-indigenous australian children - deserves support.

franny asked above ""there are many many questions to be asked of such programs - are considerations of how literacy is a socially and culturally situated practice given any consideration? Whose literacy is being delivered? Whose purpose does it serve?""
Regarding 'Multilit' I could answer some of her questions. Multilit teaches students how to use the alphabetic code. This code serves the purposes of all persons literate in English. It has lots to do with social and cultural practices. Anyone who cannot handle the English alphabetic code in an English speaking society is seriously disadvantaged.

The real lost generation of aborigines is because of their parents. In the year of 2007, no one (whether they are black, white or brindle) can hope for much of a future if they can’t read and write, and if aboriginal parents are not sending their children to school, then those parents are robbing their own children of any future.

It is also law in most states that you must send child to school until they are 16. So it is not a matter of teachers encouraging aboriginal parents to send their children to school. If aborigional parents don’t send their children to school like every other parent has to, then they are fined like every other parent would be.

And if they didn’t send their children to school after they were finned, then eventually their children would be taken from them as would be the case for any white parent.

The idea that the best teachers are sent into remote communities would only lead to teacher’s not being good teachers, in case they are sent into remote communities (where they presently have to convince aboriginal parents to abide by the law and send their children to school like any white parent has to).

Kirrsten

Thought I'd inform you that a number of teachers teaching in the NT are in fact not teachers.

They just can't find enough teachers to go to the remote Indigenous communities. The NT have resorted to employing non-teachers, who are frequently university students deferring their programs for a year to work in the remote communities. They largely do a great job.

As far as intense literacy programs taking place over several hours per day, that's too much to expect students to sit still for such a long period of time if they've never done it before. And the problem with a lot of students with literacy skills is the lack of pragmatic skills, such as the ability to sit still, listen, concentrate. The pragmatics need to be addressed before learning can take place.

Also, I think it's a bit unfair to blame parents for truancy. It's a community culture. A parent can send their child off to school each day, even deliver them to the school gate, but there's no guarantee they'll stay there, particularly if their friends meet at the school and then take off. Students, unfortunately, can't be physically tied down.

Liz,
I think that aboriginal parents would know if their children are not at school. They could easily see this from the school report card (and if they were all that concerned then the parents could also check that their children are still at school by contacting the school during the day).

But I certainly hope that aboriginal education does not go the same way as aboriginal health, where billions were spent for no gain.

I think it is at the stage where aboriginals have to learn to help themselves, and not rely on the rest of society to provide for them.

HRS

Poverty stricken people do not own telephones.

Liz,
There have been immigrants who have came to Australia from many different countries and many of those immigrants could hardly speak English and hardly had any money. Now many of them are quite wealthy. They possibly have a phone within arms reach at all times.

One of the ways they have become wealthy is to educate themselves and have their children educated also, and they did not educate their children by not sending them to school.

Liz
They are poverty sticken because they choose to be. Indigenous Australians get the same amount of welfare as white Australians. I know many elderly people (in their 70s and 80s) on welfare (with no superannuation) who provide for themselves on a pension and have telephones. The only difference is they pay their bills on time and don't smash their telephones.

HRS

There are many immigrants who have done extremely well in Australia, and who educated themselves. There are also many who have not. Where people come from in the world, what age they arrived at, how closely their first language is related to English, how literate they were in their first language, what educational opportunities are afforded them before and after arrival... all these factors will contribute to how literate they become in English. There's no better race than the other.

Jackson

I don't think many Indigenous 70 year olds would trash a telephone. That's something Indigenous youths do, just like white youths. Same sort of reckless behaviour occurs in ghetto type settlements, regardless of the colour of the inhabitants.

Come to think of it, there's not many 70-yr-old Indigenous people. They tend to die 20 years earlier than us.

Liz,
If someone doesn’t send their children to school then of course there is going to be a poverty cycle. That is one of the reasons why there are schools. To avoid poverty cycles.

I thought you would have taught you that in teacher’s training college.

Having worked as a teacher in remote communities in the NT for the last three and a half years, I have seen and been a part of many of the issues you are all discussing. Like most issues in Indigenous communities there are no qucik fix solutions. Definately one of the main problems is finding quality teachers, within this short time frame that I have been working in this situtaion I have seen a huge turn over in teaching staff in the two schools that I have taught at. The first in a space of two years had 4 teaching principals, it was only a two teacher school. The second school where my husband and I have been for one and half years as seen two teaching principals already, again only a small school of three staff. In both of these schools I have seen truley incompetent teachers and the havoc they have caused within the classroom. So, much so that some students have come close to emotional breakdowns. The problem is that there are no teachers out there willing to teach remote, and those that are usually have no insight into what it takes to live and work in these situations. The other major problem I believe is the parents lack of responsibilty when it comes to sending their kids to school, the reasons I hear for this lack of attendance are inexcusable. They were too tired, didn't have clean colthes etc. The reason they are too tired is beacuse they are are up all night listening too music that blares untill the earlier hours of the morning or live in close proximity to those that disrupt others. In our first community, despite being dry, alscohol abuse was huge. There was a pub outside the community 20 minutes walk away, so constant fighting was a daily part of our student's lives. These students already face tremendous stresses in their lives, it is sloely the responsibility of their parents to start making changes. We have been making excuses for too long.

I don't pretend to have any of the answers, but was glad to see the Howard Government finally doing something. Not that I agree with the way that it has been handled. Bring on Noel Pearson's ideolgies I say. I do agree that there is a place for bilingual education, but again this has to be handled and resourced in a particular way. In a majority of schools we are already running strong literacy programs, AL (again only if the teacher implementing the program is any good) and we are seeing strong results with those students that attend regularly. It is time for our Aboriginal Australians to start making an effort, ( some are, and we are seeing huge success with their kids) and to break the dependency cycle they have been reliant on for two long.