John GuentherMelodie BatChris Duncan
FOUL PLAY OR A WITCH HUNT? LOOKING FOR ANSWERS TO THE ‘PROBLEM’ OF REMOTE EDUCATION
Ninti One Objectives
2
• Address social and economic disadvantage of people in remote regions of Australia
• Find solutions to economic exclusion
• Increase economic participation of peoples
• Improve understanding of Australia’s remote regions
• Increase the skills and capacity of people
• Enhance and protect the natural environment
• Understand the impact of climate change on environment and people
Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation
Goals: 1. To develop new ways to build resilience and strengthen regional
communities and economies across remote Australia.
2. To build new enterprises and strengthen existing industries that, provide jobs, livelihoods and incomes in remote areas.
3. To improve the education and training pathways in remote areas so that people have better opportunities to participate in the range of economies that exist.
Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation projects
• Regional economies• Population Mobility and Labour Markets• Enduring Community Value from Mining• Climate Change Adaptation and Energy Futures
• Enterprise development• Aboriginal Cultural Enterprise• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Economies• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Tourism Product• Carbon Economies in Remote Australia• Plant Business• Precision Pastoral Management Tools
• Investing in people• Pathways to Employment• Interplay Between Health, Wellbeing, Education and Employment• Remote Education Systems
http://crc-rep.com/research
Remote Education Systems sites
The ‘system’…
· Government and private funding sources
· Government, Independent and Catholic systems
· Principals, Teachers, Assistants, other educators
· School-based teaching and learning
· Students· Parents, caregivers· Employers· Further education and
training providers
· Knowledge and skills (as prescribed in the curriculum)
· Pathways to higher education and vocational training
· Pathways to employment· Socialisation
Supply Educational outputs Demand
Educational outcomes
…may work well in the mainstream but how does it work in remote Australia?
Research questions
1. What is education for in remote Australia and what can/should it achieve?
2. What defines ‘successful’ educational outcomes from the remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander standpoint?
3. How does teaching need to change in order to achieve ‘success’ is defined by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander standpoint?
4. What would an effective education system in remote Australia look like?
The apparent ‘problems’ with remote education
• Low attendance• Low retention• Limited transition to further education• ‘Poor’ academic achievement• The need to address ‘disadvantage’• Limited employment opportunities• Limited employment uptake• Welfare dependency• School-community engagement• Mobility• Health, nutrition, drugs and alcohol, suicide
What is the ‘solution’ for remote education?
• Lots of solutions offered…• “you’ve just got to get quality teachers”• “send the kids to boarding schools”• “provide more incentives for teachers to stay longer”• “more Indigenous teachers”• “every child, every day”• “strong start, bright futures”• “better and more accountability of schools”• “better school governance”• “take away benefits if the kids don’t attend”• “more appropriate testing”• “reduce welfare dependence” • “two way teaching and learning”• “improved school-community engagement”
The key indicator of success is NAPLAN but what does it measure?
• Is she a witch?
Let’s have a look at what NAPLAN says about remote schools
• Analysis here is taken from 2011 test results (available from MySchool)• Analysis is only for ‘very remote’ schools (as defined by ABS)• Only data from schools with >80% Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander is
shown• Excludes Tasmania (1 school) and New South Wales (2 schools)• The charts only show Year 3 Reading results
NAPLAN and (dis)advantage in remote schools
450 500 550 600 650 700 750 800 8500
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
f(x) = 0.254146657130207 x + 138.486189162494R² = 0.0943754075130522f(x) = − 0.627996749288907 x + 630.534132466477
R² = 0.376664005443293
f(x) = 0.248516715695845 x + 133.69808835841R² = 0.202176246611522
f(x) = 0.247267420823622 x + 60.7285714548102R² = 0.00929665608475438
Northern Terri-tory
Linear (Northern Territory)WA
Linear (WA)
SA
Linear (SA)
QLD
Linear (QLD)
ICSEA
Year
3 N
APLA
N R
eadi
ng 2
011
Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage
NAPLAN and attendance in remote schools
Australian average =415
And what are the policy/strategic implications of this?
Deficit discourses
…and urges us to consider deeply the inherent flaws and implications of the deficit discourse embedded in policy and strategic applications.
Lowe challenges education practitioners and administrators to review their own professional contexts and to reflect on the values and attitudes they bring to their education communities and partnerships.
Lowe, K. (2011). A critique of school and Aboriginal community partnerships. Two way teaching and learning: Toward culturally reflective and relevant education. N. Purdie, G. Milgate and H. R. Bell. Camberwell, ACER Press: 12-32, p.12.
Is it about looking for answers to the problem?
• Or is it about listening to the things that have already been shared?
• Or is about helping those voices to get louder?
nganampa manta lingkitu naglantjaku - to hold our land firmly
• Four Pintupi artists: Sarah Napangati Bruno, Paul Tjampitjinpa Bruno, Monica Nangala Robinson, and Victor Tjungurraya Robinson made their painting, over a period of four days, in response to a question posed at the 1989 Australian Curriculum Studies Association national conference: Which way for the Australian curriculum?
• Keefe, K. (1991). " Painting the curriculum: the view from Walungurru." Journal of Curriculum Studies 23(3): 259-268.
nganampa manta lingkitu naglantjaku - to hold our land firmly
What then do we aim to achieve?
Short term outcomes
Medium term outcomes
>12 months
Long term impact,
project end and beyond
Community level
Standpoints questioned
Imagined futures
expressed
Imagined future
becomes real
School level
School level change
strategies
Innovation in teaching and
learning
Improved school level outcomes
Policy level Dissemination products
Inform policy, share
learnings
Adaptive remote
education systems
Correlation and causation
• http://blogs.abc.net.au/nt/2012/05/litter-linked-to-violence.html
• There is a correlation between violence in indigenous communities and litter in indigenous communities.
Contact
John Guenther
0412 125 661
Melodie Bat
0427 226 561