From my observations the indigenous enrolment numbers are getting higher because the percentage of people claiming indigenous stays is on the rise.
Very simple maths, more people more enrolments.

damn predictive text. It should be status not stays.

Hi Individual,

You're maybe half-right, there could still be non-Indigenous people claiming to be Indigenous in order to gain some supposed benefits, but the reasons for doing so are probably fading away.

But on the other hand, with high levels of inter-marriage in the cities (up to 90 %) and a tripling and quadrupling of the number of students with Indigenous background finishing Year 12 since 1999 or so, many Indigenous students are paler in the first place and perhaps a little more ambivalent about claiming Indigeneity, and quite able to get into university with standard qualifications in the second place. There is the possibility that many of them may try to avoid all the hassle and not claim Indigenous status.

So if anything, the official DEEWR numbers may be under-counting students with Indigenous ancestry. DEEWR relies on the universities' data-collection and reporting systems, and in turn the universities rely on students ticking the box 'Aboriginal etc.' on their enrolment forms.

When I was working in the system, back in the days when very few students had Year 12 and therefore had to enrol as Special Entry students (in mainstream courses, at the campuses where I worked), the university's official count was always 5-10 %, even 15 %, fewer than what we knew was the more accurate figure. In fact, I suspect that the university senior management didn't believe even their own figures, and always assumed that the numbers included non-Indigenous students. And of course, they assumed that the great majority of Indigenous students were enrolled in Indigenous-focussed courses, which was never the case wherever I worked. But it suited the Indigenous Studies people for them to think so.

There has always been a lot of very dirty politics in Indigenous education and it's amazing to me how persistent Indigenous students have been in battling their way through to graduation - no thanks often to Indigenous academics, who tend to put their own careers first in their pursuit of white 'acceptance'.

Cheers,

Joe

The latest fad in Qld now is to dream up schemes that involve 'mentoring' indigenous people in jobs. What yet another immense misappropriation of public funding. Why, I hear you say ? I tell you why, because no indigenous will get anything useful out of it but some of the bureaucrats who dream up these schemes will rake it in as per usual. Airfares galore to collect frequent flyer points for the next holiday.

Individual,

Yes, it's puzzled me why, so often, initiatives which actually could have immense merit and value, are turned into yet more crap jobs, sinecures for the appointment of friends and relatives - whoever may be 'loyal' to whoever has the power in an organisation, regardless of competence. The upshot of this process is that nothing improves as it could.

Maybe one problem for Indigenous people - as only 2.5-3 % of the Australian population - is that it is easy for the economy to carry what is effectively a handful of people, in phony jobs. In this sense, Indigenous people are locked into a rentier economy, a padded economy, where, in spite of grand titles, they may not actually have to work, just walk around the corridors, or stand outside an office smoking, being the token Blackfella, and the darker the better.

So any Indigenous graduate who really does want to work faces a lot of pressure to sit back, do nothing, and merely support the image of a politically-correct organisation, by being the window-dummy.

Why do people sit back ? Is it that difficult to stand up and say, I want to do the job I was appointed to ?

We lived for four years at one settlement and my wife was elected to the Council there. Council meetings were supposed to be all-Aboriginal, and at the first meeting, she took on the role of Secretary. However, the [white] administrator, a retired accountant, always attended Council meetings where, as administrot, he effectively took over as Chair. As an accountant, he was up with the money and numbers, so he effectively acted as Treasurer. And whe nmy wife tried to take notes of the meeting, the other councillors said, 'No, let Catweasel [as they called the administrator] do it'. 'No,' she said, 'I'll do it.' Very frosty silence. Afterwards, they put pressure on her to give up the role.

So much for self-determination and 'community'.

Loudmouth,
I have noticed that the one real skill in the indigenous communities is to hand money over to outside con merchants yet when a genuine outsider tries to do the right thing by the indigenous they come down on them like a tonne of bricks.
There appears to be an inbuilt inability to sus out the decent from the cons. It's the latter who get appointed by state government bureaucrats.