Week 2 Blog

Week 2 Blog: Education Fails Indigenous Kids

Australia has to improve its education constantly, performing better from year to year in international benchmarks, to support productivity growth and quality of life. In the National Assessment Program: Literacy and Numeracy tests and My School website, Education Minister Julia Gillard has not only provided parents with vital information about their children's schools but given Australia an invaluable evidence base for school improvement. Generally speaking Australia’s schools as a hole perform reasonably well, however indigenous education is failing dismally. It is reported that forty percent of Australia’s indigenous students are not even achieving minimum national standards. According to the government's draft of Indigenous Education Action Plan research shows that "the realistic time-frame that should be considered to achieve outcomes for indigenous people equal to the rest of the community is to focus on the outcomes that should be expected for the children to be born in 20 to 25 years from today". In other words, the union's time frame to achieve the same pass rates for indigenous as for non-indigenous children is more than 30 years. Many of the indigenous schools are in the Northern Territory, with some in Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia. Education departments now know which of their schools are not performing. Many students who graduate from these schools cannot read, write or count. In these schools, 70 per cent to 80 per cent of students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9 fail to achieve minimum national standards. Indigenous year 9 students in many remote schools have literacy and numeracy equivalent to mainstream students in year 3. They are six years behind and never catch up. About 20,000 indigenous students attend these schools. Being a foreign student I can’t help but relate the issues with indigenous students to African American students in the United States. Currently African American studies are at a low, and similarly it will take significant time before there is any improvement. I have done some research on the topic, and many issues are contributed to problems at home. School districts and government need to do a better job influencing students who come from trouble backgrounds. They need to understand that they will never excel if they do not take their schoolwork seriously. No company will employ a twenty year old who is illiterate. Immediate reform needs to be installed before any progress will be made. It horrible and incredibly sad for the indigenous and African American culture, however recognizing there is a problem is the first step.