What Are The Pros And Cons Of Indigenous Education

Inquiry conducted by the Australia Bureau of Statistics exposes large discrepancies between the educational outcomes of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. For example, the 2006 census revealed that 155,738 Indigenous students were attending an educational institution of some sort, ranging from pre-school to tertiary education. Worryingly, this statistic equates to Indigenous students representing only 3.3% of the overall student population in Australia for that year. The same census found 19% of Indigenous persons aged 18 years and over reported Year 12 as their highest level of completed schooling. In comparison, 45% of non-Indigenous persons within the same age group achieved this level of schooling.

Fortunately, educational discrepancies

Many believe Indigenous culture is outdated and lacks relevance to today’s society. Assimilation, discrimination, and technological advancements have each contributed to a reduction in the culture’s adherents, threatening its continued existence. To overcome this, the framework adopts a holistic approach to education, allowing key learning areas to be interconnected. For example, a drama lesson may surround the various Indigenous ceremonies that are employed to share stories and connect the community, while a geography lesson may surround the symbols and land links that such ceremonies display. The integration of each pedagogy allows an inextricable link to be created between the past, present, and future, challenging the aforementioned belief while catering effectively for a variety of learning styles. Resultantly, learning becomes “meaningful and important for all students” (N.S.W. Department of Education and Training, 2003, p.9), increasing their motivation and

Common within western pedagogy, said approaches “focus on standardised testing at the expense of other skills” (Drozdowski, 2012, p.6), adopting teacher-centred, rote-learning techniques, such as “worked examples, explication, demonstration, and structured learning” (Bobis, Mulligan, & Lowrie, 2013, p.117), to do so. Effectively, students become passive participants within their education, preventing the attainment of deep content understanding. Alternatively, the non-linear, indirect nature of the framework actively engages students in “seeking and constructing meaning” (Curtin University, 2016) “through the development of a hands-on, minds-on, and research-based disposition towards learning” (Caldis, 2017). Such student-centred techniques “encourage learners to look inwardly and reflect on their learning” (Drozdowski, 2012, p.6), positively impacting their results and emotional