Thanks Loudmouth Joe and your wife.
Well not suburban but rural these days but far too many are not getting to school.
for me at least your comments are very real.
I always will want everyone to get an education,and much of it the same as every ones.
I know an ex racist,white not a bad bloke, but life is strange he works now in education.
The very kids we speak of, the hard ones.
I have seen this bloke cry, often,as his task gets harder.
He once was as described so yes hope springs internal.

Loudmouth what makes me sad is if your thread had been about bl*&*ing the dole it would be 100 posts long by now.
I see in your post understanding.
It says exactly what I think is needed,that education should focus first on the normal for all.
I know,as it always has been,those you speak of will be the leaders in the next generation.
And as we differ on left right wing issues,could ask for nothing more than every one being educated.
It is my view,we are guilty too,in leaving kids behind, by being too lax, not make sure education is taken by all.

Not to worry, Belly - every year that goes by, Indigenous people are more successful in tertiary education, with more students, more graduates, and more people with a wider and wider range of expertise, working in the Australian community generally, and in the Indigenous community more specifically.

Think of it this way:

* yes, about 20 % of the population ('unemployed adults not in education') is seemingly stuck in lifelong welfare-dependence, but the rest of the population is either in education (30 % of the population is school-age children [180,000], after all, and another 12 % are adults who are either at university [12,000] or in TAFE/VET courses [70,000]) or working (35 %, [200,000].

* since the seventies, the Indigenous population has rapidly differentiated into two main populations - one on welfare, the other in education or work. Really, what we are looking at is the phenomenally rapid development of a class structure, with some at one end up, up and away and an unskilled and unmotivated minority still waiting for permanent welfare like dung beetles at the @rse-end of the last Diprotodon.

* unless steps are taken to 'encourage' the welfare-oriented population to get into education and/or employment, the rest will race away from them - some of the professional, to be sure, will live off the permanently-unemployed but I fervently hope that a growing proportion of highly qualified people will seek employment in the mainstream and buildtheir lives and careers alongside other Australians, as self-determining individuals.

* clearly, apart for extremely few exceptions, group self-determination, 'community' self-determination, has failed: nobody was ever really serious about it. I think that 'S-D' was merely a code for 'lifelong welfare', for a large chunk of the population, as recipients and as parasite professionals, people with some clout or influence who would cover for the recipients, who would perennially justify lifelong welfare because of what might have happened to people's great-grandmothers. According to the holy texts of oral history, which never lies or gets distorted.

Yeah, right.

Meanwhile, think of it again from another angle:

[TBC]

[contd.]

* each year now, about 12,000 Indigenous people turn twenty. The equivalent of nearly half start university each year (probably close to six thousand this year). The equivalent of the rest start TAFE/VET courses. In other words, by the time this age-group turns thirty, the great majority will have either gone to university and graduated, or finished a TAFE course. Or both.

* Indigenous people have opportunities. They have choices. They make their own choices, some sensible and some stupid, like other people. I'm confident that the sensible choices will prevail.

* by 2020 or soon after, Indigenous university graduates will number more than fifty thousand, one in seven adults - one in every four women in the cities. Some time in the 2030s, graduate numbers will hit 100,000, one in four or five adults. What impact will these tens of thousands of graduates have on their relations, their friends ? On Indigenous policy ?

* Meanwhile, what will be going on out in the remote settlements ? Anything positive at all ? I'm sceptical, to say the least.

Cheers,

Joe

I feel very good after that Joe.
Well put and in truth while reading it came to me that the faults can be found in every group white, refugees, any group.
What irks me is the PC leeches that ride on the backs,even seem to support and encourage failure, in those shanty towns.
regards

Joe,
I feel a bit more hopefull after reading your views.

What concerns me the most now is the fate of the children in remote areas. Do you have knowledge of the NT intervention and the outcomes?

I read the report that prompted the intervention and was appalled at the sexual and other abuse of children and the infection and parasitic infestations that the parents seemed to ignore. Not to mention the lack of education.

I would be interested in your views on whether there has been any progress here and your opinion as to what can be done. It seems most politicians put it in the 'too hard' basket.