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

John.guenther@flinders.edu.au

0412 125 661

Melodie Bat

Melodie.bat@cdu.edu.au

0427 226 561