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Davis, John --- "Practical Reconciliation' and the State Education System - Digest" [2005] AUIndigLawRpr 56; (2005) 9(3) Australian Indigenous Law Reporter 103

‘PRACTICAL RECONCILIATION’ AND THE STATE EDUCATION SYSTEM

EDUCATION POLICY UPDATE

John Davis^*

Introduction

At the federal level, the Howard government, through its mantra of ‘practical reconciliation’, has had a significant impact on the way Indigenous education is delivered in Australia, especially in the primary and secondary sectors. The federal government is supposedly developing a clearer working ethos for creating and supporting models to promote Indigenous education and practical reconciliation. In particular, the government has developed the programs ‘Dare to Lead’, the Parent School Partnership Initiative (‘PSPI’) and programs for whole school intervention.

Dare to Lead

Dare to Lead is a nation-wide strategy, run by the Principals Associations Professional Development Council. Initially, Dare to Lead focuses on using input from school principals to direct organisational change for Indigenous education. Through the impetus provided by successful projects like Chris Sarra’s Cherbourg State School in Queensland, principals across Australia are joining the project, aiming to improve rates of Indigenous student participation and success. Partner schools in the Dare to Lead project, aptly named Coalition Schools, number nearly 500 across the country.

Dare to Lead promotes itself as an opportunity to investigate practical steps to achieve more positive Indigenous educational outcomes. But what are the costs of the program? The principal-based, leadership focused approach taken by Dare to Lead undermines the positive steps taken by Indigenous parent support groups, Aboriginal Student Support and Parent Awareness (‘ASSPA’), to devise appropriate educational strategies and models for schools. Dare to Lead focuses on individual principal leadership, without acknowledging the need to support and encourage Indigenous leadership.

As a national project, Dare to Lead operations are divided along state and territory lines. These areas are then further split into smaller, more manageable districts. For example, Queensland is divided into five Dare to Lead districts. Regional management raises some significant issues, particularly in urban and large regional centres throughout Queensland where there are substantial Indigenous populations but minimal Indigenous input. The regional organisers of Indigenous education for two education districts, Logan-Beaudesert and Mackay-Townsville, are Migloo (non-Indigenous).

For those who don’t know Queensland, these two districts cover huge territory and culturally diverse populations. Yet who organises these people? Who ‘dares to lead’? It appears that Indigenous participation in policy-making, and regional organisation for Indigenous projects, are considered neither a necessity nor a right for Indigenous people. In fact, appropriately qualified Indigenous educators acting as regional organisers for Indigenous projects are the exception, rather than the rule. Centralised, principalised, non-Indigenous power is now the norm for Indigenous education, leadership and empowerment programs.

When the Dare to Lead project was developed, the community input program ASSPA was disbanded. ASSPA bodies were locally-based groups that could promote Indigenous awareness and education at a national level. ASSPA ensured that there were opportunities for effective community consultation on the development and production of culturally appropriate educational resources. This addressed an important need, as culturally appropriate education has not been a reality for the vast majority of Indigenous Australians, particularly those based in urban centres. Because of ASSPA, national Indigenous education policy was able to incorporate Indigenous parental input to produce positive educational outcomes while also meeting federally mandated national goals.

The Parent School Partnership Initiative

In 2004, the federal Department of Education, Science and Training (‘DEST’) cancelled the ASSPA program and replaced it with a newer, ‘sleeker’ model. One of the most significant changes related to funding. ASSPA had received guaranteed, per-capita funding for schools, that could be managed through family and community input. By contrast, the new PSPI program requires schools and communities to make ‘submissions, effectively [putting] schools in competition with each other’.¹

Despite the shortcomings of the ASSPA program, it enabled individual school communities to locally coordinate their own support programs. The new PSPI program requires much more statistical data and analysis and does not guarantee the availability of funding; overall funding is also reduced. The implementation of the program in 2005 has also been impeded by confusion over the application process and unclear directions from the DEST organisation about to the criteria that will be applied in considering submitted applications.

This year represents a period of great change. A shift from the decade old ASSPI program – a tried and true measure that allowed for the delivery of culturally appropriate programs – to a new, untried initiative. As Packer states, ‘there was manifestly inadequate preparation for managing the process of change’.² The change in Indigenous Education funding allocations has been swift, and for the majority of Indigenous communities, severe.

Less than a year after the federal government announced its proposals, the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Bill 2004 was introduced and passed.³ So in the course of a year the federal government has created a massive funding gap for Indigenous education in schools all over Australia as part of its ‘practical reconciliation’ process. Now there is a void in both process and application of federal government support for Indigenous initiatives.

Vital parental input which saw the development of homework centres and cultural educators has been thwarted by the new PSPI process. As Packer writes, ‘the new PSPI program fails to empower parents and does nothing to encourage them to remain involved in their school and participate in their child’s education’.⁴ When speaking to other Indigenous educators with over two decades experience in our state education system, further dissidence becomes apparent. Val Wright, a respected Yuibera elder and Community Education Counsellor for Mackay North and Mackay State High says:

Students whose parents are involved in their education tend to do better in school than those whose parents have little or no contact. With such an expeditious change in the parents roles in schools no provision has been made to address the disempowerment that has occurred due to the shift from school based decision making to centrally controlled management. For too long have Indigenous parents been denied equal status in managing their children’s educational pathways that as a result, appropriate outcomes become unrealistic when based on processes and protocols that are devised by bureaucrats who are ill informed on Indigenous rights.

The central concern for many Indigenous educators and parents is that the change over was not handled gradually, through a progressive process. The transition mirrored more of a D-day approach. Simply put, communities were told that after 2004 there would be no more ASSPA. There was little (if any) ground work done to assist school communities and their parent bodies in the transition from ASSPA to PSPI.

It has only been in a handful of areas, where there are strong ties between Indigenous educators and liaison workers, that schools have developed the newly mandated Indigenous Management groups to act as an advisory body for the implementation of Indigenous support programs. Management groups, like the Mackay North State High School Indigenous Education Group, were not developed from the forethought of the DEST office doomsayers; rather these have represented individual school responses to the shift from the ASSPA program.

The Need to be Culturally Appropriate

At a recent meeting of UNESCO in Paris, I presented a paper regarding Australia’s Indigenous education practices for Special Rapporteur Rodolfo Stavenhagen’s report to the United Nations on Indigenous education in the 21st Century. The seminar was a joint venture of UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) and OHCHR (the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights) as part of the United Nations journey to achieve the 2015 Millennium goals.

As part of my report I examined the shift from the culturally appropriate pedagogical practice of community consultation to the new competitive submission-based process. From our deliberations at the Expert Seminar on Indigenous Education, a number of Conclusions and Recommendations were made by the Special Rapporteur, Rodolfo Stavenhagen for the United Nations.

Conclusion point 10(l) clearly suggests that Australia attempts to deal appropriately and effectively Indigenous education have been inadequate. The point reads: ‘Culturally appropriate education is essential for Indigenous people. Culturally appropriate education (is) achieved through the participation of Indigenous communities in the planning process’.⁵ The present changes to Australia’s Indigenous education programs are poor models of transition and are far from being culturally appropriate.

The PSPI process devalues individual school efforts and programs and seeks broader district application of programs. These changes have been forced by the traditional and ineffective process of change from the top down. Community consultation has been disregarded. Community consultation is not and has not even happened in the ASSPA transition. As Northern Territory Senator Trish Crossin writes ‘if this [PSPI] is an example of the federal government’s new policy on mutual obligation, then after this effort Indigenous people can only believe it will be a one-way street’.⁶

The ASSPA system ensured individual community school groups had active community consultation processes. The new process does not. It focuses on the written justifications and broad statistical data that informs projected outcomes. This means that small individual school projects lose out to wider, district-based school programs, with schools forming clusters to make submissions for new funding.

It appears that the broader, less effective district models are priorities, whereas the smaller, focused, community orientated applications, like those promoted by ASSPA, are ignored. Indigenous education is not and should never be the job of one well-learned submission writer. It is the work of many. Submissions lauded for their readability and not viability or degree of community consultation do not cater for the needs of Indigenous students or Indigenous communities.

The Approach of the Federal Government

Mutual obligation, as the phrase suggests, should be a two-way street. Practical reconciliation, as espoused by the federal government, is not what is practical in a community setting within schools. Practical reconciliation is what is practical from Howard’s perspective. There is no half-way point. Practical reconciliation, as shown by the ASSPA turnover, reflects an attitude of ‘our way or the highway’.

The new PSPI system practically destroys grassroots, community development of programs shaped specifically to meet community needs and wishes. Its holistic approach is at the heart of the Coalition’s policy, a policy not of integration or self determination for the people, but a policy for assimilation; one that is paternalistic and patronising.

The community lobby will now be a crucial factor in protecting rights to education and to have practical, proactive input into the implementation of Indigenous Education policy. This will be a struggle considering the present federal government’s insensitivity to issues of social well being. Current Indigenous policy and Indigenous issues are discussed with the new (but old) focus point of children’s wellbeing. Practical steps towards poverty reduction and improved health are the mantra of the Coalition, as if these issues were not discussed earlier.

Is ceding a proactive voice in the delivery of appropriate curricula and appropriate pedagogical practices the right response? Knowing our rights as citizens of Australia is of the utmost importance. Buying into the Howard debate about mass reforms in all Indigenous policy areas is not the way to go.

Mass change does little to build continuity and longevity of programs designed to meet the educational needs of Indigenous people. Instead, such change creates hysteria and confusion – which schools are now facing in the absence of ASSPA. ASSPA ensured Indigenous parental input and kept projects accountable. PSPI is a wholesale reform that does not.

The introduction of Dare to Lead was timed to coincide with this dramatic institutional change. The Dare to Lead program takes the leadership away from the parental groups and now places it on the desks of already busy principals. PSPI is a new form of economic rationalisation from a conservative government that has bypassed internationally recognised standards of full and proper community consultation, entwined with old-fashioned rhetoric about the viability of projects like ASSPA.

Our role in Migloo education in this country is relatively new. The key indicator data reflects this fact. Low retention rates and poor performance in numeracy and literacy tests are also symptomatic of the wider historical imposition Indigenous communities have faced in the past, and continue to face. These are facts not excuses – past injustices have happened over time, and it will take time again to improve the situation. There is no quick fix.

In fact, instead of fixing the problem, the mass reinvention of Indigenous education policy has tended to worsen the circumstances for Indigenous children. It is essential to be more proactive in incorporating Indigenous learning and knowledge and developing community capacity. Utilising existing Migloo structures and funding bodies is paramount. It is also necessary to create effective consultative bodies, but the change needs to be gradual.

Conclusion

The sudden shift we have witnessed in our communities, and the after-effects of the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Bill 2004, have done little to inspire confidence in the Migloo system. If anything, it instils fear and further disempowers the most disempowered members of Australian society. Our shining light will not come from the great white hope, it certainly will not come from Howard or his representatives: it will always come from within.

Our Indigenous communities, our specific individual communities, are an essential part of the process for achieving positive outcomes for Indigenous students in schools. When wide-scale changes are introduced, it is harmful not to have clear and well-planned steps and procedures for consultation in place. As Val Wright puts it, ‘if in our Indigenous beliefs a whole village is responsible for the nurturing and education of the young, then where is this philosophy apparent in the current scheme of consultation?’

The swift implementation of the new Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act 2004 reeks strongly of paternalism, hardly best practice for the federal government’s policy of practical reconciliation. It is time the federal government had a frank discussion about the way it deals with its Indigenous communities in Australian education systems. Stop talking down to us and start talking with us – that is what real reconciliation is about.

More information on the Dare to Lead program is available online at <http://www.apapdc.edu.au/daretolead/> .

The Final Report of the Employment, Workplace Relations and Education References Committee on the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Bill 2004 is extracted in this edition at p 93.

Endnotes

∗ BA, PG Dip Ed (UQ). John Davis is a Murri and Cobble Cobble man, and is a Secondary Teacher at Mackay North State High School, Queensland. He coordinates the implementation of Indigenous studies into the school curriculum. John has been involved with the UQ Education Department, specifically working with Dr Martin Mills, inservicing pre-service teachers on Indigenous education issues (from 2000–03). Last year at the Seminar on Indigenous Education he presented a paper as part of the Expert panel of Indigenous Educators for the United Nations (UNESCO, Paris).

1 Steve Packer, ‘No Common Cents’ (2005) 47 Australian Educator Magazine 16, available online at

<http://www.aeufederal.org.au/Publications/AE/Spr05pp16-18.pdf> at 12 October 2005.

2 Ibid.

3 The Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment Bill 2004 was introduced in the House of Representatives on 17 November 2004. It was referred to the Senate Employment, Workplace Relations and Education Committee on 6 December 2004, and was passed by the Senate on 7 December 2004. It received assent on 14 December 2004. Because the Bill provided for funding for the period 2005–08, the legislation was passed urgently, and without prior close scrutiny.

4 Packer, above n 1, 16.

5 Rodolfo Stavanhagen, ‘Conclusion and Recommendations of the Expert Seminar on Indigenous Peoples and Education’, Addendum to Indigenous Issues – Human Rights and Indigenous Issues, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of Indigenous People (2004), 6.

6 Packer, above n 1, 16.