Distance or Difference in Aboriginal Education
Abstract
The majority of the 27,000 Aborigines in the Northern Territory live in remote communities and on cattle stations, or are grouped around some of the smaller rural towns that are scattered through the 1,347,500 square kilometres of the Northern Territory. These extremely isolated communities may vary in size from, say, one hundred to over one thousand people. There is vast climatic and geographical variation, too, between the tropical communities around the beaches that fringe the Arafura sea, and those in the desert where the harsher climate and terrain have an appeal of their own to those who live there.
To educate 7,000 Aboriginal children, the Northern Territory endeavours to maintain 43 schools in Aboriginal communities, plus another 27 which are located on pastoral properties. Apart from two residential colleges located at Alice Springs and Darwin, which cater for secondary-age Aboriginal students, all Aboriginal schools could be regarded as remote, isolated by geographical distance from the larger centres. These 70 schools present complex logistical problems to those who supply and maintain buildings, equipment and staff. However, although formidable, the problems associated with remoteness are insignificant when compared with the social, cultural and linguistic factors that create distance between these traditionally oriented Aboriginal children and our western style of education.
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