Historically teachers seem to be in a habit of understanding under achievement as the 'aboriginal thing' - Talking about race in the education system is a bit like talking about the elephant in the room, everyone can see it but nobody seems to talk about it in depth.
The school setting is a cultural landscape, where meanings are created, in particular meanings of what it means to be white and what it means to be indigenous- through social constructs.
The dominant group constructs the knowledge.
The appeal of school is not very strong to indigenous students and therefore means poor attendance and poor retention rates due to many factors: a extremely large number of white teachers who are not encouraged to be self reflective, the curriculum itself is very 'white' with continuing narratives of peaceful white settlers- when the terrible treatment of the indigenous people is very fresh in their minds.
The location of schools - within very remote areas of Australia or very low Socio economic areas also serve as a discouraging factor.
The NSW education minister, as stated in the below article, declares that the school system is failing aboriginals and is treating them 'like rubbish'. He goes on to say that the remote schools have very little opportunity. after visiting remote schools, he said he had never seen a worse off school- the school had appalling conditions that would never be allowed in Sydney. A school that had 500 students enrolled, only 30-50 students would turn up on any given day. A culture of high achievement is no where to be seen.
I think that the government needs to move the funding out of private schools and move it into schools such as the one above. But more importantly the government needs to address problems around low retention rates- they need to look at the power relations at play. and promote the equality of condition, not just the equality of opportunity (they work together).
The negative connotations attached to indigenous education need to be examined and processes need to be put into place to reverse them. We have a long way to go
References:
- Vass, G.(2012). The radicalised educational landscape in Australia: listening to the whispering elephant. Race Ethnicity and education, 1-26
- http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/disgust-at-nsw-indigenous-schools-system/story-fn9hm1pm-1226727265463#
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