Chapter 11: Towards the New Millenium, 1987-2000
Ab. Ed. Unit, 1986-1987: city to Enfield.
Hughes Report, 1988.
Support Programs at Adelaide Uni, and Flinders Uni. At Salisbury, Roseworthy, off-campus centres: MurrayBridge. Ngarrindjeri students at other country study centres: Port Lincoln.
Ngarrindjeri language project, 1986-1987? BrianKirke and Marlene.
Berndt, 1989
[68] ‘… Aborigines all over the country, whether or not they are traditionally oriented, are becoming increasingly committed to an Australian-European type of lifestyle and belief system, in varying degrees. … a growing awareness of the uniqueness of their own heritage is being counter-balanced by the construction of an overall, generalised, Aboriginal heritage, that could override the survival prospects of particular regional heritages [the survival of heritages: meaning what ? by definition, a southern Aboriginal heritage is something no longer, a memory, something people cherish in the midst of a radically different daily life] relevant to many different Australian Aboriginal cultures. This is a crucial point – but it is one about which Aborigines themselves must make up their minds.’ [So four options, at least as thought experiments] [there are others, as long as nobody consciously thinks about them]:
strive to go back to a totally traditional life, with traditional values, religion, economy, etc., specific to original groups, purging all aspects of European/modern/contemporary influence from daily life, striving to be, or raising one’s children to be, blissfully ignorant of the outside world;
i.e. removing oneself and one’s group from the contemporary world altogether:
the traditionalist-culturalist approach.
strive to develop a unique synthesis of what are perceived the best of the specific and local traditional world and the most convenient of the modern world;
i.e. retreating into a localised, parochial and closed world, still dependent on outside financial support, but ideologically hostile to and excluding it, at least rhetorically:
the welfare-culturalist approach.
strive to synthesise a common neo-Aboriginal world, based on the range of (neo-)traditions nation-wide, even world-wide (Canadians, Maoris, etc.) and including, or taking for granted, whatever is useful or convenient from the contemporary world;
i.e. creating an contemporary but oppositional, or complementary, indigenous world, and striving to put together a composite, homogeneous, holistic, but non-European, package:
the oppositionalist-radical-culturalist approach.
strive to keep an Aboriginal heritage alive as heritage, promoting it to the world and teaching it to one’s children, but actively taking in and promoting whatever is seen as most useful the contemporary world, vehicles and mobility, computers, TV, modern medicine, higher education, etc.,
i.e. getting by in the mainstream of the contemporary world both as individuals and as voluntary communities: the liberal and communitarian self-determinationist approaches.
People are trying all of these approaches, in a vast range of variations, not necessarily consciously but in everyday life. There probably never will be a unified approach, since people are viewing their realities, their knowledges, from so many different perspectives. People’s realities and positions vary, their individual histories and memories of past realities vary, their interpretations of present-day realities therefore vary, so their approaches, viewpoints, paradigms, frameworks, world-views and ideologies vary immensely, probably from one individual to another, and within the one individual over time, and always will. There is now no overarching paradigm to which more or less everybody will adhere, or any one set of social relations in which everybody knows their place, and agrees to stay in it. As time passes, Aboriginal realities, knowledges, perspectives etc. will become ever more differentiated, less overlapping let alone unified, although new focal paradigms will emerge as notions, ideas, perceptions, world-views coalesce or crystallise.
Not only are Aboriginal viewpoints multitudinous, but it is pure assimilationism to pretend that they are all one and that to say otherwise is ‘divide and conquer’. They are not all one, never have been, and may never be. People’s material circumstances are not all the same, access to heritage and reliance on it are not all the same (let alone the same heritage), and their interpretation of those circumstances and of the options which these circumstances constrain or encourage, are not all the same; and there is an immense range of possible interpretations and explanations to fix on for any one situation, let alone for the whole shebang. It is not a question of one or many, but one of which ideological positions are being developed, or can be allied – can all progressive ideological positions on a certain issue (such as Reconciliation, Land Rights, Education for Self-Determination) be brought into alignment, alliance, coalition, cooperation ? Or are many positions and viewpoints so fatally flawed that they can only be brought together for negative purposes, or in a patron-client alliance, or on the basis of raw power, or control of the money tree, or in momentary anger at yet another governmental blunder ?
Meningie – 1998 paper
Current population about 1000. 38 professional fishermen use Meningie as a base. Lake Albert is 25 km long, 7 – 14 km wide, and 166 sq. km in area, average depth 1.5 m. Coorong stretches 150 km to just past Salt Creek, 200m to 3 km wide, up to 4 m deep, 3 times as salty as the ocean. Before Europeans, ‘because of the proximity of the fresh water of the lakes, the ocean and climate, it was a life of hunting kangaroos, wallabies and emus, catching the plentiful ducks and waterfowl, netting the rich Coorong waters for fish and eating the many edible plants growing in the area.’ ‘Camp Coorong 10 km south of Meningie was founded in 1986 as one of the first aboriginal educational and cultural centres in the country.’
Australian, 2/3.5.92: 9
JerryMasonCentre aiming to establish the first Ngarrindjeri language centre. Agnes Rigney, co-ordinator.
Impact of AEWs, Interventions etc.
In a very real sense, Aboriginal children have rarely ever been provided with the same education as white kids. When they have, it is highly questionable whether or not it has done them as much harm as the ‘different’ education they have endured over the past hundred years. For example, from the early seventies, a number of interventions were introduced ostensibly to help Aboriginal students get more out of education: AEWs, changes to the curriculum, community involvement, etc. Have they worked ? Or is it possible that the interventions have actually been counter-productive ? Is it even possible that they have done dreadful damage to yet another generation of Aboriginal children ?
If current interventions were working, then one would expect that the schools at which they were applied would have better enrolments right to the end of Year 12. This seems to be a fair measure of school success. If this were so, then Year 12 students would tend to be in the schools with larger Aboriginal populations than in those with few Aboriginal enrolments, because the larger the school, the more interventions, the more likely the employment of AEWs, and so on. A crude measure but one which is hard to beat: if interventions were working, then the more likely they were employed, the more students would be getting through to Year 12. Is this so ?
For a start, the schools with the largest Aboriginal populations tend to be in the country, yet the relative likelihood (i.e. relative to the State-wide likelihood) of an Aboriginal student reaching Year 12 in a country school fell from 76 % to 59 % from 1993 to 1996 (while the relative likelihood in the city rose from 132 % to 169 %). In other words, the likelihood of an Aboriginal student reaching Year 12 in the city in 1996 was nearly seventy percent higher than in the country:
CityCountry
Yr 8-11Yr. 12Yr 8-11Yr. 12
1993:Nos:47259 (22-37)53150 (24-26)
%:47 %54 %53 %46 %
1996:Nos:55044 (18-26)63631 (16-15)
%:46 %59 %54 %41 %
As well, one would expect, if the interventions were working, that the larger the Aboriginal population in a school the more effective the interventions would be, or at least that they would be more effective (i.e. in assisting students get through to Year 12) if the Aboriginal school population was larger than the median size. That is, that there would be more Year 12 students at schools with larger than average (median) numbers of Aboriginal students in Years 8 to 11. Schools with smaller than average numbers of Aboriginal children in Years 8 to 11 would be less likely to employ an AEW, or to spend time and money devising intervention strategies. But what is the actual situation ?
In 1993, in city schools, the median (middle) Year 12 student was attending a school with fewer Year 8 to 11 students (nine for girls, ten for boys) than were enrolled at the median school (twelve to thirteen students). In country schools, the trend was small but insignificant, although, even there, not in the direction which would support the pro-intervention viewpoint.
1993CityCountry
Median, Yr 8-11: 12-13 Yr 8-11 students41 Yr 8-11 students
Median, Yr 12, M:10 Yr 8-11 students41 Yr 8-11 students
Median, Yr 12, F:9 Yr 8-11 students39 Yr 8-11 students
By 1996, the disparity between Year 12 median and Year 8 to 11 median had increased, even though the median itself had declined as Aboriginal students seemed to disperse to more schools. By 1996, in city schools, the middle female Year 12 student was in fact attending a school with only six other Aboriginal students, far too small to warrant any major interventions at all, yet there were as many female Aboriginal Year 12 students in schools with fewer, as with more, than six Aboriginal students at Years 8 to 11.
In the country, this trend also occurred: even though the median school had more Year 8 to 11 students enrolled, the median Year 12 students, male and female, were attending schools with far fewer Year 8 to 11 students than the median school.
1996CityCountry
Median, Yr 8-11: 9 Yr 8-11 students55 Yr 8-11 students
Median, Yr 12, M:8 Yr 8-11 students16 Yr 8-11 students
Median, Yr 12, F:6 Yr 8-11 students31 Yr 8-11 students
So, not only was a higher proportion of Indigenous Year 12 students attending city schools, but the average (median) number of Indigenous students at Years 8 to 11 at which the average (median) Year 12 student was enrolled was far below the level at which interventions would be employed. If the interventions were actually working, the trend would be in the opposite direction: that is, the more opportunities to employ interventions (AEWs, curriculum change, etc) the more likely students would remain at school through to Year 12. But they were remaining at schools which would be less likely to employ interventions.
In fact, if interventions were working, all other things being equal, the mere fact that the median city school had a Year 8 to 11 population median far below the country median would suggest that there would be far more Year 12 students at country schools. Even more so, that if the interventions were doing the trick, then there should be hardly any Year 12 students at city schools, while the great bulk should be attending country schools, and the larger the school the more likely that Year 12 students were enrolled there. But the trend was precisely in the opposite direction: a solid majority of Year 12 students were attending city schools, and the bulk of Year 12 students were in schools with below-average Aboriginal enrolments.
More disturbing, are the figures for changes in actual Year 12 enrolments from 1993 to 1996, as a proportion of total enrolments:
CityCountry
199312.5 %9.4 %
1996 8.2 %4.5 %
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the position of AEWs, the imposition of an adapted curriculum and the introduction of more ‘culturally appropriate’ learning styles were consolidated. The impact on Year 12 numbers was well under way by the mid-nineties. And what was that impact – was it positive or negative ? The figures suggest that these interventions have been catastrophically negative: not only are country students doing much worse than city students, exploding at least one racist myth (that the country is more ‘natural’ for Aboriginal children than the city), but the Year 12 participation rate in both country and city schools collapsed, by around fifty percent in country schools.
One could predict that no official analysis of these figures will occur in the foreseeable future: racists can rest content that the destruction of the education of young Aboriginal people will continue for a long time yet, with older unqualified Aboriginal people – dependent on the only jobs they are likely to get - willingly participating.
DETYA, from ABS Census 1996: DETYA Statistical Profile (1999?)
Unemployment rates for Indigenous people:
Overall, 1996: 22.7 %.For those with post-secondary qualification: 12.4 %.
[But let’s look more closely at these figures. The overall figures obviously do not include participants in the work-for-the-dole Scheme, CDEP. If they did, the overall figure would be over 40 %, not just double, but nearly four times the rate for qualified Indigenous people.
But let’s unpack the second figure as well: it would include University, TAFE, ‘Other post-secondary qualifications’. Since some of the last are preparation, or non-specific qualifications, to put it nicely self-described as having post-secondary qualifications, we could surmise that the unemployment rate of such people would be only a little better than those with no qualifications at all, say 30 %. They would form the bulk of the category of ‘those with post-secondary qualifications.’
Of the rest, qualified tradespeople and university graduates, their unemployment rate would then come down to about 7 or 8 %, not particularly higher than that for non-Indigenous people, taking between-jobs and re-location unemployment. And certainly a lot lower than the rate for Indigenous people generally, in whom they are included. What if we could separate those with, from those without, post-secondary qualifications, since the first category now constitutes some 35 % of the total Indigenous population ? i.e. 15 % at 7 – 8 % unemployment, 20 % of the population at 30 % unemployment. This leaves 65 % of those in the work force, with an unemployment rate of more than 50 %.
Identifying different rates for different categories of all those Indigenous people in the work-force, we can now see that the comparison is not 22.7 % for those without qualifications, with 12.4 % for those with qualifications, but more likely 50 % against 7 or 8 %.
Population distribution:
In 1998, over 100,000 Indigenous students in schools, 3.2 % of all students. Perhaps another 50,000 pre-schoolers. A twenty-year pool of about 170,000, and increasing.
The population trough bottomed out in about 1980-1982, and the birth rate rose sharply from 1983 to the present. In 1999, those at the front of the wave, i.e. at the back of the trough, turned 16 or 17, and have as many years of cohorts behind them. If they hit tertiary education in about 2003, expect the wave to keep rising until at least 2020.
If an enormous amount of work was done now, to encourage secondary students to come straight on to tertiary study instead of wandering in the wilderness for five and ten years, then the negative effects of the ten-year trough can be counter-balanced by younger uptakes over the next crucial five years, by which time the wave will have reached post-secondary age.
If the equivalent of two age-groups are at university at present, then if publicity was improved, fairly soon expect total enrolments to start rising, from ten to twelve to fifteen thousand, and after about 2010, to twenty thousand, with a seventh of that total graduating each year, i.e. from 1500 at present to two thousand per year by about 2006, and three thousand per year by about 2010. Total graduate numbers will rise rapidly again:
End of Year: / 2000 / 2005 / 2010 / 2015 / 2020Total
grad numbers / 15,000 / 23-25,000 / 33-37,000 / 44-52,000 / 60-72,000
Five-yearly
growth rate % / 85 % / 60 % / 48 % / 39 % / 34 %
Five-yearly
growth rate
(nos.) / 6,900 / 8-10,000 / 10-12,000 / 11-15,000 / 16-20,000
These final figures, 60-72,000 Indigenous university graduates, represent only about a quarter of the likely available pool. Even so, the Exceptions better start getting their anti-mass-education arguments ready. Of course, over the next twenty years, a bare undergraduate award will lose value, but with a greater and greater pool of role models, most graduates will be completing postgraduate awards as well. Life will never be easy for the Exceptions trying to keep ahead of the mob:
End of Year: / 2000 / 2005 / 2010 / 2015 / 2020Total post-
grad numbers / 1,500-1,700 / 2,800-3,500 / 4,800-6,500 / 7,500-10,000 / 11,000-15,000
Five-yearly
growth rate % / 114 % / 87 % / 70 % / 57 % / 50 %
Five-yearly
growth rate
(nos.) / 800-1,000 / 1,100-2,000 / 2,000-3,000 / 2,700-3,500 / 3,750-5,000
NgarrindjeriNgrilkulun, Oct. 23-24 1999
Two days of performances, cultural workshops, gatherings, stalls, feasts.
Adelaide Declaration, April 1999
3.1 ‘students’ outcomes from schooling are free from the effects of negative forms of discrimination based on sex, language, culture or ethnicity, religion or disability … ‘
One HundredNgarrindjeriUniversity Graduates by 2010 ?
Write this ourselves ?
ATSI tertiary education has been a phenomenal success story over the past twenty years, thanks to two factors: Indigenous Support Programs, and ABSTUDY/ATAS:
S.A. Figures
By the end of 1990, about 260 undergraduates, about 40 post-graduate awards, 300 awards all up.
By the end of 1995, about 500 graduates, with 600 awards, i.e. about 80 post-graduates, some with more than one award (a handful have up to four or more awards each).
So: by the end of 2000, we can expect (even with a slow-down) about 850-900 graduates with 1,050-1100 awards between them.
Comments: drastic slow-down in the growth in the numbers of teachers, nurses, etc. but plethora of graduating fields.
By end of 2005,
Minimum:1,200 graduates with 1,200 awards.
Maximum:1,300 graduates with 1,400 awards.
* since 1980, in South Australia, ATSI tertiary enrolments have increased tenfold; annual and total graduate numbers are twenty five times greater; a similar picture nationally;
* there are now more ATSI students at university than in Year 11 and 12, more people enrolled at postgraduate level than in Year 12, and possibly more postgraduates each year than matriculants. More ATSI people start university courses each year than start Year 11 (between 200 and 260 in South Australia; 4000 across Australia);
* total enrolments are equivalent to more than 1.5 age-cohorts. New UG award enrolments total more than 60 % of an age-cohort. New undergraduate completion numbers each year now total better than 20 % of an age-cohort; postgraduate completions about 8 % of an age-cohort;