Aboriginal Education In Australia
Aboriginal Education
I am a student and a pre-service teacher in Australia. I have been lucky to have had a quality education. I am looking forward to graduate and become a full time teacher. It has been a rather challenging experience since people from my race still face some inequalities albeit minor in various sectors including education. I have always wondered what the source of these inequalities were and thus decided to carry out a study in the history of Australia in general but in particular within the Australian education system. My findings were appalling, confirming my suspicions of a historical inequality in Australia.
In A Brief History of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education in Australia by Kaye Price the history …show more content…
The white community had a false perception that the Aborigines were an inferior race due to their socioeconomic status, a status that had been created by the white government by pushing Aborigines to harsh reserves and denying them any social or economic services. The white community, eventually, harbored an idea of wiping out the inferior race by biological absorption. This approach failed. Moreover, the attempt to divide the Aborigines into half castes and full bloods and institutionalizing the half bloods in order to assimilate them fully into the white way of life also failed (Quentin 2012). The idea was to create an all white society with a white culture since the Aborigine culture was considered inferior. Through the 1950s, the government continued creating reserves and underfunded them further deteriorating the condition of their education system. This systemic process has been difficult to reverse but efforts are still ongoing to ensure equality. In 1969, the government introduced the Aboriginal Study Grant. This grant’s sought to improve the condition of the reserves schools as well as fully integrate the Australian education system into one. Up until the 1980s, there was still evidence of segregation despite the efforts to minimize its effects. There were only about 300 Aborigines in tertiary institutions. Currently, the Aborigines and the …show more content…
I personally went through a lot of challenges since my parents also lacked the capability to provide a comfortable life due to the economic status. Their economic status was a direct result of a discriminatory education system that only prepared them for low paying jobs. It is this systemic process that must be stopped to achieve equality in education and other sectors in Australia. It is now evident that Aborigines, given a chance, can prosper just as well or even better than their white counterparts. What has kept them low is not within their genetic makeup but within the system in which they live. Individuals should be given equal opportunities irrespective of their race, I
I am a student and a pre-service teacher in Australia. I have been lucky to have had a quality education. I am looking forward to graduate and become a full time teacher. It has been a rather challenging experience since people from my race still face some inequalities albeit minor in various sectors including education. I have always wondered what the source of these inequalities were and thus decided to carry out a study in the history of Australia in general but in particular within the Australian education system. My findings were appalling, confirming my suspicions of a historical inequality in Australia.
In A Brief History of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education in Australia by Kaye Price the history …show more content…
The white community had a false perception that the Aborigines were an inferior race due to their socioeconomic status, a status that had been created by the white government by pushing Aborigines to harsh reserves and denying them any social or economic services. The white community, eventually, harbored an idea of wiping out the inferior race by biological absorption. This approach failed. Moreover, the attempt to divide the Aborigines into half castes and full bloods and institutionalizing the half bloods in order to assimilate them fully into the white way of life also failed (Quentin 2012). The idea was to create an all white society with a white culture since the Aborigine culture was considered inferior. Through the 1950s, the government continued creating reserves and underfunded them further deteriorating the condition of their education system. This systemic process has been difficult to reverse but efforts are still ongoing to ensure equality. In 1969, the government introduced the Aboriginal Study Grant. This grant’s sought to improve the condition of the reserves schools as well as fully integrate the Australian education system into one. Up until the 1980s, there was still evidence of segregation despite the efforts to minimize its effects. There were only about 300 Aborigines in tertiary institutions. Currently, the Aborigines and the …show more content…
I personally went through a lot of challenges since my parents also lacked the capability to provide a comfortable life due to the economic status. Their economic status was a direct result of a discriminatory education system that only prepared them for low paying jobs. It is this systemic process that must be stopped to achieve equality in education and other sectors in Australia. It is now evident that Aborigines, given a chance, can prosper just as well or even better than their white counterparts. What has kept them low is not within their genetic makeup but within the system in which they live. Individuals should be given equal opportunities irrespective of their race, I