Poor attainment has been attributed to lower I.Q. and ability, inadequate home environments, and poor parenting and not to the inadequacies of the
Barriers include inappropriate teaching materials and a lack of Aboriginal role models. Aboriginal education requires connection to communities and informed parents.
The main factors that influence completion rates for Indigenous students are access, attendance and achievement. The barriers to their access to school are: physical (for example, due to geographic isolation); cultural (for example, due to discrimination);
But we can't forget the curriculum and learning materials. There is a serious lack of Indigenous Australian faces and history in the materials that students are being handed. And research shows that students who aren't represented in textbooks perform worse academically.
Children experienced neglect, abuse and they were more likely to suffer from depression, mental illness and low self-esteem. They were also more vulnerable to physical, psychological and sexual abuse in state care, at work, or while living with non-Indigenous families.
Indigenous school-age children are around 2.5 times more likely to be developmentally vulnerable or at risk, compared to non-Indigenous children. This is detrimental to early literacy, and is sometimes compounded by health and other issues, particularly in remote communities.
Indigenous children are more likely to arrive at school hungry, ill and tired; they are often bullied, and the use of corporal punishment is still widespread. Ethnic and cultural discrimination at schools are major obstacles to equal access to education, causing poor performance and higher dropout rates.
Attendance rates for Indigenous students remain lower than for non‑Indigenous students (around 82 per cent compared to 92 per cent in 2019). Gaps in attendance are evident for Indigenous children as a group from the first year of schooling. The attendance gap widens during secondary school.
Most learning is achieved through real-life performance rather than through practice in contrived settings, as is often the case in schools. The focus in Aboriginal learning is on mastering context-specific skills.
AIHW analysis of Census of Population and Housing 2021 (ABS 2022b). The proportion of Indigenous Australians aged 20–24 who had completed Year 12 or equivalent increased from 52% in the 2011 Census, to 63% in 2016, and 68% in 2021.
The dropout rate is higher for Indigenous students but is declining. In 2010, Indigenous students had an attrition rate of 25.46 in their bachelor degrees compared with 13.72 for non-Indigenous students. In 2019, it dropped to 19.45 compared with 15.52 for non-Indigenous students.
High-achieving Indigenous students can “weigh up” the benefits of a university education and decide it is not “worth it” economically or socially. The risks and challenges they will face by leaving country, community and family might be seen as too high a price to pay.
The majority of students had positive attitudes to school. They felt welcome at school, believed they were treated fairly at school and they received care and respect at school. In short, these results indicate that Aboriginal children and their parents are not unhappy with the schools their children attend.
Past treatment such as loss of land and culture, stolen wages and violence transmits poverty and other disadvantages from generation to generation. Under government policies from 1910 to the 1970s, children were forcibly removed from their families in the hope that they would assimilate into white society.
For Indigenous Australians, Age Pension: 53%, Total: 53%, JobSeeker Payment: 28%, Youth Allowance (other): 20%, Disability Support Pension: 10%, Youth Allowance (student and apprentice): 1%, Parenting Payment (single): 8%, Carer Payment: 3%, Parenting Payment (partnered): 2%, ABSTUDY (Living Allowance): 2%.
We keep and share knowledge with art and objects. Symbols and Images: Using images and metaphors to understand concepts and content. We work with lessons from land and nature. Land Links: Place-‐based learning, linking content to local land and place.
In the 1860s, Victoria became the first state to pass laws authorising Aboriginal children to be removed from their parents. Similar policies were later adopted by other states and territories – and by the federal government when it was established in the 1900s.
It's a story that has been repeated for generations of Aboriginal families in Australia, and it's still happening today. In 2019/20, 952 Aboriginal children across NSW were removed from their families, a 2.6% increase on the year prior.
In NSW, the proportion of Indigenous final year high school students attaining their HSC has gone backwards from 46 per cent in 2017 to 45 per cent in 2020 and 43 per cent in 2021.
Culture is a large part of an Indigenous child's story, but it is not the only part. Many (not all) Indigenous children are under stress (educationally, socially, emotionally) due to low income, family mobility, overcrowded homes, and poor health and disability.