When we talk about Indigenous education in Australia, it almost always includes three words: « close the gap. » The federal government’s Indigenous education priorities highlight school attendance, literacy and numeracy and year 12 attainment. This frames students and their families as a « problem » to « fix. »
When we talk about Indigenous education in Australia, it almost always includes three words: « close the gap. » The federal government’s Indigenous education priorities highlight school attendance, literacy and numeracy and year 12 attainment. This frames students and their families as a « problem » to « fix. »
In other areas of education, the word « excellence » is frequently used to frame policy. But a simple Google search of « excellence » and « Indigenous education » comes up with very few meaningful results. Why aren’t starting from the same point in Indigenous education?
Our new research begins this process.
Our study
Our project started as a pilot study with three secondary schools from an urban, regional and remote setting in Queensland.
We yarned with 31 Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators, principals and teachers about their perspectives on excellence in Indigenous education.
Here we share the perspectives of 12 Indigenous educators. We do this deliberately because it is critical we elevate Indigenous voices in any re-imagining of policy that affects us.
We explored the question: « How is excellence in Indigenous education defined by Indigenous peoples? »
Three themes emerged: the young person, school culture and relationships.
‘Build young people up’
The most distinct theme to emerge was the need to nurture and affirm culture and identity in students and in doing so, « build young people up. »
Indigenous interviewees talked about identity as a protective factor in the face of navigating issues such as racism at school. As school community liaison officer Uncle Frank explained:
« In our school, once students knew their identity, they excelled.
