Towards a Good Education in Very Remote Australia: Is it Just a Case of Moving the Desks Around?

Abstract

The education system, as it relates to very remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia, faces challenges. While considerable resources have been applied to very remote schools, results in terms of enrolments, attendance and learning outcomes have changed little, despite the effort applied. The Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation (CRC-REP) in its Remote Education Systems (RES) project is trying to understand why this might be the case, and also attempting to identify local solutions to the ‘problem’ of very remote education. The RES project is in the process of building its research program across five remote sites in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia. As the project begins, the researchers involved have begun to consider what are the assumptions behind the ‘system’ in its current form(s). The article begins with an outline of the context of remote education in Australia within a rapidly changing global environment. However, the purpose of the article is to outline many of the assumptions built into remote education and to ask what the alternatives to these assumptions might be. The authors go on to ask questions about how a remote education system would approach some of the assumptions presented. The assumptions presented are based on a reading of the philosophical bases of education. The questions are designed to prompt a deeper discussion about how the values and worldviews of those living in very remote communities might be taken into consideration and acted upon.

Empowerment is the Basis for Improving Education and Employment Outcomes for Aboriginal People in Remote Australia

“…Empowerment has a strong direct impact on education and correlates strongly with employment, with an additional mediated effect whereby building empowerment influences employment indirectly through the pathway of improving education. Direct relationships between education and employment that are commonly observed in other populations were confirmed here for this population (Dockery, 2013; Guenther & Bat, 2013; Purdie & Buckley, 2010). Our analysis suggests that successful pathways between education and employment are contingent upon their capacity to build from empowerment.…”

Building on ‘Red Dirt’ Perspectives: What Counts as Important for Remote Education?

“…To a large extent ‘success’ depends on perceptions of what education is for. In a previous edition of this journal, we have problematised this within the context of remote education in Australia (Guenther & Bat, 2013). If, as we argued then (see also Guenther, Bat, & Osborne, 2013) — that in Australia at least — a good education leads to economic participation and wealth, capacity to think, individual agency and control, democratic participation and a sense of belonging, then those are the things that we should count as success.…”

Deficit metrics in Australian Indigenous education: through a media studies lens

“…) This distressing portrait of media reporting can be seen as further perpetuation of deficit thinking in relation to Indigenous education. Educational researchers have provided strong evidence that it is not natural or inevitable for Indigenous students to be understood through their NAPLAN results (Guenther & Bat, 2013). Osborne (2013, 2014) argue for a shift to 'red-dirt thinking' that would focus on Indigenous perspectives, triumphs and failures.…”