Workshop 2000: Aboriginal Policy: Failure, Reappraisal and Reform

A Response to Peter Harris and Peter Shergold

Geoff Partington

In Aboriginal education during the last thirty years, two aims have been advanced by most people with power or responsibility in Aboriginal education. One is to give priority to strengthening Aboriginal identity and culture. The other is to give priority to producing educational outcomes similar to those of other Australians. Unfortunately, the two aims are very largely incompatible. This is so irrespective of who is making the decisions. Whatever may be the locus of decision-making in Aboriginal education: central committees or Aboriginal families and groups, professional educators or concerned lay persons, the same hard choice has to be made between trying to foster Aboriginal culture and to increase Aboriginal educational achievement.

In every open society there is some disparity and tension between the culture of homes and children's experience in wider contexts. This tension was virtually absent in tribal conditions but, even in them, rites of initiation separating childhood from adulthood were not only sudden but typically very painful. Tension between home and school is usually especially strong in complex heterogeneous societies, especially for children whose mother tongue is different from that of the dominant culture and children whose domestic culture is very different from that of the school. In many societies, artificial barriers are erected to keep children from some groups from gaining full access to education, but in post-1788 Australia, governments, missionaries and other providers often tried, sometimes diligently, to bring Aboriginal children into the schoolhouse. Such efforts usually met with fierce resistance from older Aborigines. Nothing could be farther from the truth than the view, attributed by Peter Harris to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody that 'with the breakup of indigenous families and communities, the loss of culture, the demise of many languages and the impact of a culturally exclusive school curriculum, has led to a lack of interest and distrust of many indigenous communities towards education and has entrenched poor educational outcomes as an expectation'.

Peter Harris said that the policy of his school was 'to develop and establish indigenous culture', but the children had little or nothing other than their indigenous culture before going to Kormilda. How could the school establish in them what they already possessed? And how could non-Aborigines initiate Aboriginal children into indigenous culture, even if there was a uniform culture rather than seven different cultural modes?

Peter Harris argued that potential teachers of Aboriginal children should be prepared to stay on the job for a long time. In many years in the School of Education in Flinders University I did not meet one student-teacher of Aboriginal children who lacked that intention, but few of them lasted more than two years just the same. Peter then suggested that student teachers should learn about Aboriginal protocols, history, language and culture, and kinship systems. If student teachers are taught in colleges and universities in our great cities, it is almost impossible to anticipate in just which Aboriginal communities they will get their first jobs. The language that Flinders University students learned for their teaching practice among the Pinjitjatjara had no direct utility in some other parts of South Australia, let alone in the country as a whole. Peter called for more emphasis on 'cross cultural awareness', but in the post-Coombs era little else has been emphasised in Aboriginal teacher education, with the notable exception that many lecturers and students are fearful of presenting the culture of mainstream Australia, in so far as it can be defined, in a positive way, for fear of wreaking cultural genocide. Peter told us that he has reluctantly come to the conclusion that it is better for indigenous student-teachers to be educated or trained separately. I have little confidence in Apartheid, but is has attractions for many people at very different points of the ideological spectrum. I fear he may confuse self-determination as extension of personal autonomy with self-determination as the establishment of separate political communities. I favour the first for Aborigines, but perhaps he prefers the second. Aborigines are themselves, of course, divided about which sort of self-determination they seek.

Peter Harris told us that at Kormilda College, of which he became Principal, there were seven major languages, as well as 27 dialects, and English was the second language for all, or nearly all, the Aboriginal students. What policy conclusions might one justifiably draw from these facts? Should we try to teach in each of the seven major languages, choose one or two of them as the media of instruction, or move to English teaching as soon as possible? One has surely only to pose the question to know the answer. Peter claimed that 'Aboriginal communities are calling out for people to commit themselves to learn their languages, to understand their world view and stand beside them in the struggle.' Yet few Aborigines are willing to learn other Aboriginal languages than their own and I doubt whether many of them expect other Australians to devote their time to learning a range of disparate languages just in case they may later spend some time in the scattered communities speaking them.

I am not sure what Peter means by calling on us to stand by Aborigines in their struggle. I would be happy to help Aborigines in struggles to acquire literacy, numeracy, scientific knowledge, a wide awareness of the full richness of the human intellectual heritage, and a real capacity to achieve personal autonomy and in struggles to play a full part in the affairs of a nation which overwhelmingly wishes them well. However, I will not support struggles which aim to condemn as guilty of cultural genocide the men and women who strove during the last two centuries to make the wider human cultural heritage available to Aborigines

With reference to indigenous teachers, Peter used an expression I always view with suspicion. He expressed his desire that their skills should be raised so that 'their qualifications are perceived of equal standing to others within the community'. There is no point in developing perceptions unless they are based on objective reality. Peter posed as an 'issue', 'Is Australia genuine in its belief that indigenous people are equal in their capacity to experience education and learning?' 'Australia' as such has no beliefs but I do not meet many people who believe that in 2000 most indigenous children achieve anything like as much educationally as non-Aboriginal chidden. Nor does he. Their very real present-day inferiority is unlikely to be the result of defective intellectual capacity, although many Aboriginal children are severely handicapped by physical disabilities which are capable of being overcome. Low Aboriginal educational achievement is, however, more closely related to cultural than physical disabilities. The human mind develops largely through structured experiences which gradually enlarge capacity and it must be stated bluntly that the overwhelming majority of Aboriginal children have experiences in early childhood and beyond which, far from stimulating cognitive development, seriously retard it.

I was struck by Peter's account of the students at Kormilda College whose uniforms, given them just before a long vacation, were by the end of that vacation widely scattered throughout the Northern Territory and perhaps beyond. Peter attributed this to the sharing culture among NT Aborigines and he may well be right. I also experienced the distribution of school property around many parts of London and perhaps beyond when I was a teacher and schools inspector there, but the explanation was that school goods had been sold for cash or exchanged with more prized commodities. Does none of this happen in the NT?

Peter cites some passages from the Adelaide Declaration for Schooling in the 21st Century, issued in 1999). This document calls for schools to be 'socially just', so that 'students' outcomes from schooling are free from the negative forms of discrimination based on sex, language, culture and ethnicity, religion or disability...' All of us should, indeed, do our best to help all children to make optimum educational progress, but one necessary condition for this to be achieved is that we identify and reduce features of some cultures which severely handicap children brought up in them. It simply misses the point to urge that the aim should be that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students have equitable access to opportunities in schooling...' and that 'all students have access to the high quality education necessary to enable completion of school education to Year 12 or its vocational equivalent', unless we bear constantly in mind the difference between taking horses to water and making them drink. The last sentence Peter quoted from the Adelaide Declaration deserves a place in Pseuds' Corner:

The potential, then, is beyond test scores or standardised texts, and seeks to claim a spiritual centre, where reading, writing and arithmetic are merely tools to develop human beings, and the emphasis is going to be on encouraging children to develop a relationship with the natural world and the building of community and establishing a cultural efficiency'.

It is one thing to aspire to go beyond test scores if children are achieving satisfactory ones, but another if we know that at fifteen they are at levels which ought to be surpassed at age 7. It is one thing to go beyond standardised texts if children already have been provided with sound knowledge of some of the best authors of many nations, but another if they have read little of any value at all. The basics are indeed basic: the basis on which further knowledge and cultivation can be built, but they should never be described as 'merely' basics or 'merely' tools, when a large part of the target population is very far distant from attaining them. Peter Harris believes that during the last thirty years Aboriginal levels of educational achievement have increased, but there is little evidence that this is so. The present Aboriginal leadership emerged during the Hasluck years and most of them received 'assimilated' schooling. What quality of people will replace them we do not yet know. Retention levels are apparently higher, but these include many students enrolled but rarely present. There are more persons classified as Aborigine in our universities, but this is in part at least because some students once not classified as Aborigines have been reclassified and partly because university entrance requirements have been significantly reduced in order to accommodate groups deemed disadvantaged. Just what changes in educational standards have actually taken place is hard to establish, and one has justifiable suspicions as to why the information is not available.

The basic question is this. Should Aboriginal education emphasise what is different and distinctive in Aborigines and seek to establish, promote and enhance Aboriginal identity or culture, or should it emphasise those educational needs which Aborigines have in common with other Australians? If the first path is chosen, there is no possibility of any significant narrowing of the gap in educational attainments between Aborigines and non-Aborigines, an outcome that every other ethnic group in Australia would bitterly resist for its own children. If the second is chosen, the path ahead will be difficult but progress will steadily be made. Aborigines have shown in sports that they are competitive and capable of high standards. They know that to run fast, jump high, pass accurately or kick straight, hard work and practice are needed. This is true with the acquisition of knowledge: we should make education as enjoyable as possible but much that has to be learned can only be learned through diligence and sacrifice of more immediate pleasures. Non-Aboriginal teachers cannot and should not try to initiate Aboriginal children into aspects of Aboriginal culture which can only be acquired within families. Instead they should teach with vigour and determination a very similar range of knowledge and understandings to that made available to other Australians. Instead of finding a hundred cultural justifications for truancy and inattention, teachers should risk unpopularity by their attachment to steady effort and a love of learning.

Even with the most sensible policies, the way ahead will not be easy but there are many grounds for optimism. The first is that all successful peoples were once as were the Aborigines in 1788. Although many peoples have failed to adapt to more advanced cultures and have disappeared as distinctive groups, surviving only in the contribution made by subjugated females to the ongoing human gene pool, others have adapted with considerable success. The best model may be that of an 'inner circle' of language, interests, knowledge and skills shared by all groups in Australia and needed to ensure genuine autonomy in contemporary societies and an 'outer circle' of distinctive beliefs, customs and languages.

Aborigines who are unwilling to come to grips with acquiring the skills and understandings necessary for genuine equality in Australia today must remain materially inferior and disadvantaged and, in consequence will often also be demoralised and culturally inferior. If they embrace the opportunities available to them, the numbers will increase of those like Charlie Perkins, Louitja O'Donoghue, Pat O'Shane, Doug Nichols, Marcia Langton, Cathy Freeman, Sally Morgan and Noel Pearson, who have achieved full equality and more in the wider Australian society. But, although you can lead horses to water, you cannot make them drink. As in mainstream education, although at a more intense level, the problem is not lack of educational provision, but a willingness to make proper use of the abundance of opportunity the people and governments of Australia gladly make available.

Response to Peter Shergold

Peter Shergold showed us the extent of the difficulties that lie in the way of Aborigines in remote areas in gaining employment, difficulties which are likely to increase rather than diminish. He also showed us that several of the programmes of his Department have already had significant success in increasing participation of indigenous people in the schemes themselves and in holding down jobs afterwards. What is especially encouraging is that he and others have begun to emancipate government departments dealing with Aborigines from a one-sided concern with inputs and a fatal unwillingness to examine why, as has so often been the case, outputs in terms of training and employment have been so disappointing. This change in direction has, as Peter Harris noted, been encouraged in education by Dr David Kemp and the present government, but has as yet had only modest success in changing emphases.

There seems every likelihood that further technological changes will make it even more difficult to provide Aborigines with genuine jobs in places where, all things being equal, they would prefer to live. The same predicament, of course, faces hundreds of thousands of non-indigenous Australians, who face the stark choice of unemployment or relocation, but there is no doubt that the dilemma is most severe for Aborigines in remote areas. No Australian governments can stop the main trends in the world economy and it would reflect unnecessary pessimism if we concluded that all Aborigines are incapable of making even very demanding processes of transition with any success. The thrust of government should be to encourage Aborigine to reject ongoing abject dependency and to choose, if necessary, a new life in places where jobs are available and to give sufficient help to enable them to encounter change successfully.