School Condition

Blog 6 – School condition

On 1st October 2013, World News Australia Radio is discussing the topic about ‘Appalling’ conditions in Indigenous schools. You can access the radio transcript through the link: http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/10/01/appalling-conditions-indigenous-schools.

The central idea of this radio is to demonstrate that there are two main reasons for poor attendance and results at schools of Indigenous students, which are poor school building conditions and badly organized curriculums.

At the beginning of the radio, the New South Wales Education Minister, Adrian Piccoli, states that Labor and Coalition governments have neglected Indigenous education in some remote areas. Ford (2013) also provides the evidence that in the first half of the twentieth century the Indigenous students in remote areas such as the Northern Territory did not have access to primary and secondary education compared to non-Indigenous students. Hence, the Indigenous students are still being as the minority group in Australian schools after so many years. Moreover, although the 2013 NAPLAN National Report is not yet available, from the previous reports; we can find that there is a huge gap about educational outcome between Indigenous background students and non-Indigenous background students. In Mr.Piccoli’s own electorate in western NSW, after visiting Walgett High, he describes the school’s toilets as disgusting while there is a hole in the school’s roof that has been left unrepaired for about a year as well. He strongly believes that the physical condition of the buildings directly influences students’ attendance rate, and the unpleasant attendance record is not to his surprise.

Besides school conditions, a limited curriculum also affects Indigenous students educational achievements. Karina Lester, who is an Aboriginal language worker, explains the key to improving Indigenous education is to make the school courses more relevant to the local communities. In other words, she believes that it is vital for students to understand their family’s role within the communities and the traditional knowledge and culture could help Indigenous students build a sense of belonging. Furthermore, Dr. Sam Osborne, the Principle of Ernabella Anangu School in the APY Lands, is a Senior Research Fellow in Indigenous Education at the University of South Australia. He recognises that encouraging more Aboriginal students to choose careers in teaching is one effective way of improving the standard of Indigenous education. It is because cultural understanding can help Indigenous students achieve their best. He also states that universities and education departments are obliged to encourage more Indigenous and non-Indigenous teachers to work in the remote area of the country.

In conclusion, I agree with Mr. Piccoli’s opinion that schools environments and courses will exert a direct influence on students’ behaviours. Indigenous Australians as a part of Australian society have to experience equal rights in every part of their life, especially start with education. It is because that education provides people more opportunities and changes people’s life. Moreover, children are the core part of a family, by experience the equality of the education, the Indigenous people could feel that they are a part of the society and the society value them. Furthermore, I think by teaching in the remote area of the country is an awarding experience and we could gain a lot of useful teaching skills that we can’t get them though the books. The achievement gap between Indigenous students and non-Indigenous students are still there, it is everybody’s responsibility to continue work on this problem.

Reference:

Margot Ford (2013). Achievement gaps in Australia: what NAPLAN reveals about education inequality in Australia, Race Ethnicity and Education, 16:1, 80-102, DOI: 10.1080/13613324.2011.645570