This year, around twenty thousand Indigenous people were enrolled in university courses. Around three thousand will graduate, bringing the total to about fifty eight thousand. Of those, more than a quarter will have completed post-graduate courses.

Some universities offer Indigenous-focussed courses, some only mainstream courses: the great majority of Indigenous students, perhaps contrary to popular belief, enrol and graduate in mainstream courses. But the two institutional pathways have had very different fortunes over the past twenty five years. While enrolments have tripled since 1994 (and doubled since 2007), the growth in student numbers at those universities with an Indigenous-course focus has barely doubled, those with a mainstream focus have risen far more quickly, by almost five times: Newcastle University’s Indigenous numbers have risen by a massive factor of seven since 1994, and Griffith University’s by nearly six-fold.

Indigenous-focussed courses have been offered for more than forty years now: in the early seventies, the assumption seemed to have been that Indigenous students couldn’t really handle the rigour of mainstream courses, but needed ‘adapted’ courses, usually shorter than degree-length. But very quickly, universities tended to approach the issue differently: given that few Indigenous students were completing Year 12 back then, and that the Indigenous student body was overwhelmingly mature-aged, yet were attracted to mainstream courses, some universities offered intensive preparation courses, usually of term- or semester-length, and comprehensive support services, so that students could slot into standard, mainstream courses and be supported - and support each other - throughout their studies.

The two approaches had drastically different dynamics: Indigenous-focussed courses needed specific, long-term course writers and tended to be separatist in orientation; mainstream courses (and support services) tended to be more inclusive, with Indigenous students mixing happily with non-Indigenous colleagues. Some courses - teaching and nursing, for example - were necessarily mainstream: attempts to set up shorter, Indigenous-focussed courses in these fields attracted few students, and usually foundered, sometimes without producing a single graduate. Yet

[TBC]

What job sector is the most commonly targetted course ? What relevance to life & economy in indigenous communities do these courses have ?

How many centuries have to pass before people with a smidgen of original inhabitants’ blood in their veins will cease to be 'indigenous’? Most of them are more white than black.

Joe couldn't, or wouldn't, tell me why the educational activities of a small group of people he has singled out are of importance. He also denied that he practises identify politics. Yeah, right.

Dear Joe,

It's so good to hear that Indigenous Students are doing so
well in mainstream courses. It is
important that this be encouraged so that they are able to
blend into society at large and to fit in. I can't comment
on the Indigenous-focused courses. I don't know what they
entail. Perhaps you could tell us more about them and how those
courses would practically help Indigenous students? There must
be a reason why students are not attracted to those courses.

Joe thanks, we need good news but it is striking how your thread has highlighted something very different
Some WASP could well do with education too
As in my view education is the best hope for mankind your thread is great news
Just a small,openly racist few words? maybe

[continued]

Yet the push by staff in Indigenous-focussed courses continued, at least until about 1998-2000: some initiatives were made to offer full-degree courses with an Indigenous focus, but non-Indigenous enrolments in these courses usually outnumbered Indigenous enrolments, and in some years, no Indigenous people enrolled in them at all - unless you count re-badging courses with new course codes and sliding students from one to another as ‘new students’. Incredibly, some Indigenous university staff still believe that ‘Blacks should do Black courses, Whites should do White courses.’ One suspects that, if Apartheid was ever explained to such staff, they would brighten up and say, “Hey, that’s a good idea !”

Most universities seemed to toy with Indigenous-focussed courses between 1990 and 2008, before phasing them out. Universities with an Indigenous course focus started phasing out their lower-level - Certificate and Associate Diploma - courses between 1994 and 1998, with (one suspects) an expectation that Indigenous student numbers would inevitably decline - as if the gesture to offer university study to Indigenous people had more or less had its day, and amid sighs of regret shared with a gullible senior management, that brave but fruitless initiative would now wither away: but happily, instead, Aboriginal Culture courses would now be taught to ALL students regardless.

But other forces were at work: Year 12 numbers rose rapidly after 1999-2000, and now are many times the earlier rates. A high proportion of those successful students have come on to tertiary study, the equivalent of more than half of the relevant age-group. Total enrolments have tripled since the bad old days earlier this century when the out-dated model was still dominant. The vast majority of Indigenous students - perhaps 95 % - are now enrolling in mainstream courses, and that won’t change any time soon.

Graduates have strong role model effects, so one major reason for the healthy upsurge in Indigenous university numbers is probably the impact of previous graduates. And that can only grow.

Joe