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EMPOWERMENT THROUGH EDUCATION

DEMAND 6

 

Lift the ban on bilingual education and allow expansion of bilingual programs in NT schools where requested.

 

Invest in training and employment of Aboriginal teachers and Aboriginal teachers' aides and ensure they play a central role in curriculum development.

 

Provide resources and employent opportunities to enable schools to become important centres of culture and community life.

 

Invest in staff, infrastructure and equipment to ensure all remote Aboriginal schools have full time qualified teachers and enjoy the same resources per enrolled student as schools across Australia.

Stop punitive programs linking welfare payments to school attendance.

 

 

References.

 

Education is the Key

Response by the Australian Education Union (NT Branch) to the NT Intervention in 2007, including comprehensive analysis of resource shortfalls in the NT education system.

Gaps in Australia’s Indigenous Language Policy: Dismantling  bilingual education in the Northern Territory

AIATSIS Discussion Paper by Jane Simpson, Jo Caffery, and Patrick McConvell. This paper analyses the importance of bilingual education programs, as well as the policy context and debates surrounding both the NT Intervention and the NT government's 2008 decision to abolish bilingual programs.

Interview with Yalmay Yunupingu

Audio interview by 'Chalk and Talk' with one of Arnhem Land's foremost community leaders and educators. Discussion Yalmay's fight to keep teaching in Yolngu Matha, despite threats to her job.

Welfare Payments and School Attendance: An Analysis of Experimental Policy in Indigenous Education

Issues Paper prepared for the Australian Education Union by Professor Larissa Behrendt and Ruth McCausland, Sydney University of Technology, August 2008.

Speaking my language: Going back to Lajamanu

Four Corners report on the decision to scrap bilingual education. Surveys the history of the program and contemporary views.

A tale of two schools

7:30 report by Murray Mclaughlin on the gross disparity between Aboriginal Homeland Learning Centres and well resourced remote schools for non-Indigenous students.


Explore the reality further:                                        What's the next demand?