The literacy question in remote Indigenous Australia
The literacy question in remote Indigenous Australia Report
CAEPR Topical Issue
- Author(s): Kral, I
- Published: 2009
- Publisher: Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Australian National University
Abstract: Public commentary commonly attributes blame to inadequate teaching, poor resourcing of remote schools or even lack of parental support for school attendance. In a recent review of education in the Northern Territory (NT) Dr Chris Sarra, from the Indigenous Education Leadership Institute in Queensland, accused NT educators of expecting less of their Indigenous students and inadvertently creating an underclass (ABC News April 13 2009). Why? Because the 2008 national English literacy and numeracy benchmarking tests indicated that the NT had some of the highest illiteracy rates in the country. With its singular focus on schooling, benchmark testing and attendance, the drive to increase literacy in remote Indigenous Australia tends to ignore adult literacy. Yet, Australian of the Year Mick Dodson has just declared that adult literacy is the key to closing the gap in Aboriginal life expectancy (ABC Online April 17 2009). The literacy debate rarely addresses the critical social and historical factors that also account for why literacy levels among remote Indigenous youth are lower than their mainstream, urban, English-as-a-first-language speaking counterparts. The focus on schooling obscures the less obvious fact that we must also be cognisant of the broader sociocultural factors associated with literacy acquisition, maintenance and transmission in newly-literate contexts such as those of the remote Indigenous world. There are many complex and intersecting factors that can be attributed to the lower rates of literacy, many of which actually have little to do with the quality of teaching or resources, school attendance or lower expectations of competence.
Research Notes:
A version of this article was published in the National Indigenous Times, 30 April 2009
- Urls: https://www.voced.edu.au/content/ngv%3A26623
- Publisher Location: Canberra