Why Are So Many Aboriginal Children Not Achieving At School ?

Abstract

In 1988 the Aboriginal Education Policy Task Force called for broad equity between Aboriginal people and other Australians in access, participation, and outcomes at all stages of education. Aboriginals are not achieving a comparative level of success at school compared to non-Aboriginals. Symptomatic of problems in our schools are, the over representation of Aboriginals in lower classes, the high drop-out rate of Aboriginal children and their low participation rates in the senior years of high school. Some 17% of Aboriginal youth continue their schooling to year 12 compared to 49% of all students (Department of Employment, Education and Training, 1988, p.7). The failure of Aboriginal children to achieve at school has been widely interpreted as an individual failure on the part of Aboriginal children. Poor attainment has been attributed to lower I.Q. and ability, inadequate home environments, and poor parenting and not to the inadequacies of the education provided, to prejudices Aboriginal children face or to the active resistance by Aboriginal people to the cultural destruction implicit in many educational programs (McConnochie, 1982, p.20). An examination of the determinants of school success shows that Aboriginal children’s cultural values, beliefs and practices and Australian schools are often in conflict. To improve the outcomes for Aboriginal children schools are required to assess whether or not they are catering for the inherent needs and talents of individual Aboriginal children.