Higher education data for 2012 have been released. Once again, they show that Indigenous commencements and enrolments are rising steadily, at around 7 % p.a., to 5,824 and 12,632 respectively.

Indigenous Commencements make up 1.67 % of all Australian commencements. Indigenous female commencements were proportionally higher in 2012 – 2.55 % - than those of non-Indigenous Australian males, as they have been for some years.

Indigenous commencements have risen more than 50 % since 2006, nearly 60 % in bachelor-level courses, overwhelmingly in standard, not Indigenous focussed, courses.

Indigenous Enrolments in post-graduate courses rose nearly 55 % between 2006 and 2012: in 2012, just under two thousand Indigenous people were enrolled at these levels, almost half at Master’s level. There were twice as many Masters’ students in 2012 as in 2006.

1627 Indigenous students graduated from universities across the country in 2012. This takes the total number of graduates up to around 34,000.

More than seven hundred Indigenous students are enrolled at Newcastle University and nearly as many at Deakin and James Cook.

Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Education has almost vanished as an entity –from seven hundred students ten years ago, it enrolled only 22 in 2012. But Charles Darwin University tripled its Indigenous commencement numbers between 2006 and 2012.

Around half of all Indigenous graduates go on to post-graduate study. Nearly four thousand Indigenous people have graduate with post-graduate awards since 2000.

Consistently Indigenous women are participating, and graduating, at twice the rate of Indigenous men.

But clearly, the participation rates are much higher in southern and eastern cities. In New South Wales, Indigenous commencement numbers rose by 87 % between 2006 and 2012, but actually fell in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

The Indigenous birth-rate rose dramatically from the mid-eighties, and the proportion of Indigenous students completing Year 12 also rose very rapidly from about 1999, doubling and then doubling again in South Australia, for example.

The vast majority of Indigenous students finishing Year 12 enrol in standard courses, not Indigenous-focussed courses.

[TBC]

[continued]

It is very likely that, by 2020, there will be fifty thousand Indigenous university graduates across the country, including twenty thousand post-graduates. The vast majority will be in mainstream positions, in the cities.

For full tables, email me on: joelane94@hotmail.com

I should have pointed out that these figures for Indigenous Australians are quite comparable with the figures for US and Canadian Native Americans, and for Maori.

A young-adult female Indigenous age-group would number around 5,800-6,000, so the 3,824 who commenced study make up the equivalent of around 55-60 % of an age-group, and that's how it's been for some years now. Of those commencements, around 600 would be in post-graduate courses (so not first-timers) and another 300 or so might be of people transferring from other courses, or returning to study after some years.

So a net 2,900 Indigenous women - out of an average young-adult age-group of about 5,800-6,000 would have started university study in 2012 - in other words, half of an age-group. For men, it's around a quarter or less. For men in remote 'communities', where high levels of skills are desperately required (and of the 'right' sorts of skills, as Individual has poinge out many times), as well as trades, the figures are probably in the low single-figures. So there is work to do by hot-shot educational 'leaders' when they get back from their next overseas conference.

In the major cities, around 20-25 % of young Indigenous women would be university graduates, overwhelmingly at degree-level and above, and in standard courses.

I'm confident that their ancestors would be proud of them ! And there's more to come !

Joe

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

It is very heartening to read such positive results.
Do you have any information on Indigenous youth in
remote areas and how they are faring as far as their
education goes?

Hi Lexi,

Thanks so much for your comment. I have a horrible suspicion that people in rural and remote areas, particularly men, have been turning away from education of any sort over the past ten or twelve years, from upper secondary and from university-level education - and perhaps seeking out phony TAFE courses which they can do over and over, and which are reliably guaranteed to get them nowhere and thereby not put them in danger of having employable skills, and thereby having to front up for employment.

As a consequence, there could be rapidly growing rift between urban and rural/remote populations, and particularly between urban women and rural/remote men, at the ends of a work- and welfare-oriented spectrum.

Urban Indigenous women have been marrying non-Indigenous men for fifty or sixty years, so as more urban women gain education and professional skills, and as rural and remote-area Indigenous men pull back from education, skills and employment, there is even less likelihood of Indigenous women marrying Indigenous men. This is bound to have profound demographic consequences.

Until the men lift their game, that situation is likely to become even more fraught. The ball is in their court, but not forever.

Love,

Joe

Yes, I have witnessed a huge growth in indigenous participation in education. The only perplexing factor is the answer to the question "where are they now?"
The money spent on flying them home every school holiday plus no-limit funding for literally anything does appear to be an imbalance with actual job filling & in any enterprise. There are a large number who make up the ALP quota 8% indigenous employment in the public service but in private enterprise or manufacturing the numbers are as low as ever. The does not appear to be a focus on eventually creating internal revenue, it's all about extracting more funding for chest-beating exercises by integrity bereft lefties.
I only know of a very small number of indigenous who have the go to make their life on their own merit. They are respectable individuals who have the integrity to forfeit the hand-out mentality of leftist Governments & bureaucrats. They see through the bull dust of leftist do-gooders who do nothing but undermine those indigenous who have pride in achieving something that they themselves have acquired. Shoving pointless saturation education down the throat of many intelligent kids & ruining them with smoke-screen promises is just too hypocritical.

Indi, do you have to politicize this with your "it's all about extracting more funding for chest-beating exercises by integrity bereft lefties." and "the bull dust of leftist do-gooders" You hate to see stories which show indigenous people in a positive way, it doesn't sit well with you blinkered view that likes to portray aboriginal people in the negative.
Thanks for that Joe, good to see there are positives, and there are many positives with indigenous people trying to make their way in what still is a very discriminatory white society.

Got to fly Joe, literally....but a quick thanks for this thread.

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

I watched "Q and A," last night.
It was filmed in WA - and in one part of
the show an Indigenous professional (female)
told of the numbers of Indigenous youth that
were in WA jails. She stated that females in
particular were safer in the jails than they
were in their own homes. What a shameful thing
to learn. And that many actually learned literacy
skills in jail. She spoke of conditions in
these communities that could not be ignored -
and I coudln't help but wonder - why nothing
is being done to solve these problems - or for that
matter - what can be done that will actually work.
Education, seems to be the key - and this leads
to employment - but in this day and age in our
country surely we can do better than what we're
currently doing?

She also told of a two year old child who had been
penetrated so many times that the child will never
be able to have children. Can you imagine - a two
year old child? I've got a two year old grandchild.
That is horrific.

Joe enjoyable reading that good news.
I wish I could point to some of that coming from my area.
Seems suburbia is producing the best results.
Yet we have integrated housing and separation here and seem unable to make much ground.
Will watch thread with interest.

Thanks SoG, Belly, Individual, I'll have to get back to you.

Thanks Lexi,

Yes, that sort of thing was why Howard brought in the so-called Intervention, and thank Christ he did, it might have stopped some dreadful abuse in the outlying settlements, where -literally - nobody can hear you scream or, to be more precise, everybody can but nobody does fu@$-all.

Back in 2007, my late wife wrote an article about what she called the 'two Indigenous populations' - one which was work-oriented, and therefore education-oriented, and the other which was welfare-oriented and therefore grog- and abuse-oriented. Sorry, that's how we saw it. One population had decent health, education, employment etc. stats, the other had shocking stats.

The two populations overlap, of course, and in, say, a graduate's family, there will be drop-kicks and boozers, and occasionally, vice versa. But the two paths are moving off in different directions and it is up to the people - not that outsiders can do much at all - to decide which path to take. Dropkicks make their own decisions too.

But they are not puppets, or twigs in a stream, being driven hither and thither - they are agents in their own lives, and make their own stupid and disastrous decisions. Seriously - such people THINK they are being smart, clever, tricking the system, by avoiding education and skills, and therefore work, and staying on welfare and in that semi-criminal zone. Yes, there's a lot of violent death in that zone, but it's a bit late to think about it until afterwards.

So I don't bother much about them. There are many, many others who want to make a go of their lives. They are the precious ones, the people who will make a positive difference, who make an effort to contribute. They make up, i reckon, around two-thirds of the Indigenous population, are very often inter-married, and are raising their kids to a work ethic. They're not the dung beetles hanging around the @rse of the last giant Diprotodon. To me, they are the future of Indigenous people.

Love,

Joe

Lexi,

There is a bifurcation in aboriginal culture. Those who want a better future and will take up the opportunities to improve themselves are doing so. It is only natural too that they would want to find a life in middle Australia, a well-ordered 'burb with schools and safety from the long-grassing relatives who threaten them and molest their loved ones.

The others who want to be dependent, see no worth in making an effort and make excuses for their own sloth and lack of respect, will slouch along on guvvy benefits while being serial nusiances and threats to themselves and others. They need it to always be someone else's problem. But they make choices every day.

Caring parents and prospective parents need to get themselves and their families away from dangerous people who perceive benefit from a dysfunctional lifestyle and are going nowhere through their own choice.

Offenders do not end up with a custodial sentence for minor offencees. It takes some very nasty anti-social behaviour against other people to end up in gaol.

In my long experience in this area, in the rural SE, there has been much improvement, though still big problems.

Re individual's comment: "There are a large number who make up the ALP quota 8% indigenous employment in the public service but in private enterprise or manufacturing the numbers are as low as ever."

There's some truth in this, but it's more complex. I'm always amazed at the negativity about the public service: that's the medical services (esp. in country towns that can't keep private doctors), the paramedics, the police, the park rangers, the council road builders and gardeners. These jobs keep our communities going. I know Aboriginal people in all these 'public service' areas and more, and they're not just token jobs (they got them on merit not because of some quota, which I have never heard mentioned).

It is however true that there are few Aboriginal small business people (although there are some). There is a basic historic reason for this. Many small businesses are family ones, such as small farmers, local newsagent, electrician, plumber and hairdresser. People in small business tend to have a family background in this: in my own family, over the generations most have run their own businesses, or with increasing professionalisation, have moved between public service, big business and their own business (eg architect)

(cont.)
There is no similar generational history of a small business tradition for most Aboriginal families (though I know of some notable exceptions). Those that worked were low-level unskilled employees (noting some exceptions such as skilled station workers). What education was available was aimed at training them for domestic or labouring jobs; in the past they could be refused admittance to schools in NSW.

Even if they did break through the system, racism meant that some small businesses were not worth aiming at: an Aboriginal hairdresser? Small town bakery, butchery? Who would take them on as an apprentice? What white people would patronise them? Why even try? (Successful businesses were fencing, carting etc. where you didn't have to deal with white customers).

Then, those that were still prepared to try had another hurdle: trying to get a loan to start a business. I know one man, now about 80, whose parents moved to Victoria so he could go to school, who rose to a manager position on a station, but then could not get a loan to start his own business.

With so few in small business, it is then not surprising that there are few large Aboriginal owned businesses (given that large businesses develop from small). I don't have any knowledge of Aboriginal employment in manufacturing, but I guess that would depend on other factors.

Things are improving, and I know several Aboriginal people who run their own businesses. Few however are in the small business retail trade, the main street shops and skilled trades - racism and the difficulty of getting finance probably still play a part.

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

It is good to know that some things have changed over
the last decades and that there is hope for the future.
I'm pleased that not everything is dark and grim and
that the achievements both of their own communities and
the policies pursued by local, state and national
governments are not being under sold. At least by the
sound of things younger people seem les resigned and
submissive than their parents' generation. Hopefully
their self-confidence will grow through achievements,
they will become more self-assured and politically aware,
and won't be pushed around or patronised by anyone.
Education is the key as you point out.
Thank You for starting this discussion and I shall continue
to read it with interest.

Take care.

Cossomby,
It goes without saying that the people you mention, medical ,Police etc. are vital members on the public payroll. We're not talking about them though are we ? We're talking about bureaucrats who do nothing except apply for higher positions. Australia seems to be the world's capital for the Peter Principle.
It strikes me that people in the larger centres are not as much exposed to wastage & incompetence as we are in small communities. We have it flung into our faces on a daily basis. In larger centres people are working so hard that they miss what's going on around them because if they don't perform they're out. I see people showing up for "work" two hours late, have two hour lunches, stay away without explanation & no-one can discipline them or dock their pay. It does get to some decent people so much that they pack up & leave.

Lexi, " Hopefully their self-confidence will grow through achievements,
they will become more self-assured and politically aware, and won't be pushed around or patronised by anyone."

Rather they have to slough off what has been happening around them and make a break in their own best interests.

Any insinuation that the problems and restraining forces are all external (to communities) and any fault lies with the mainstream Australian public is wrong.

I spend 4 months a year in communities like Aurukun and Lockhart River where all I see is full blood kids having a ball at school but that's as far as it goes.
What you see getting an education (at taxpayers expense) and jobs in the public service are quadroon, octoroon and quintroon people who play on the public purse as aborigine or indigenous Australians for the achievable benefits.

I hope that some here saw a recent ABC Television show/documentary.
It followed a group of talented young Aboriginals and their roll in trying out for the AFL selection /draft.
It to me said a great deal.
Many of these talented young blokes seem to have been stopped from making it, by their love.
Family links are iron like and so too are links to mates.
No good going on if I am the only one who saw it but for me, it highlights a reason some fail, loyalty to mates and family holds them back.
The lack of ability to live outside that group, leads to failures too.