An Action Research Project into Secondary Education for Aboriginals in South Australia was initiated in 1972, and the appointment of five research teachers (project teachers) was approved by the Minister of Education at the end of 1972. In February 1973 the five project teachers took up their positions at Ceduna, Maitland and Meningie Area Schools and Glossop and Port Augusta High Schools. (In South Australia, “Area” schools cater for both primary and secondary students and “High” schools cater for secondary students only.) Those five schools were chosen because they had the highest percentage of Aboriginal students enrolled when the project began. Project teachers were appointed for a period of two years and their main task was to develop suitable strategies for increasing the achievement and motivation of Aboriginal students in secondary school.

The Victorian Education Department is philosophically opposed to the unnecessary segregation of children. Consequently, and with the approval of the Victorian Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs, the two special schools for Aboriginal children at Lake Tyers and Framlingham were closed some years ago.

During the existence of the Victorian Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs it had been traditional practice for that Ministry to undertake special projects, after consultation with the Education Department, to alleviate educational disadvantages of Aboriginal children. Generally this support took the form of funding specific school projects or school equipment. However, in relation to other states the Victorian funding for education was at a low level.

The transfer of responsibility for Aboriginal Affairs from the Victorian State Government to the Australian Government on 1st January, 1975, made it imperative for the Victorian Education Department to assume full responsibility for the administration of all funding pertaining to the education of Aboriginal children. This step was necessary because the Commonwealth Department of Aboriginal Affairs does not seek to provide educational services for Aboriginal people. They believe that the provision of such services is the responsibility of existing State Government educational authorities. The Department of Aboriginal Affairs seeks to stimulate, co-ordinate and if necessary, support the extension, and where appropriate the accommodation of existing services to Aboriginals, and to ensure that special measures are taken to overcome any particular handicaps which Aboriginal people may suffer.

The preparation of this paper has been stimulated by the table appended to the article “Parental involvement: endeavours to improve communications between Meningie Area school and the Pt. McLeay community in the period 1973–4” (A.M. Nankivell, The Aboriginal Child at School, Vol. 3 No. 1, 1975 pp. 48–55). The table, headed “Summary of Main Points Arising from Group Discussion of the Eight Major Problems at Meningie”, is a report of some conclusions derived from a seminar conducted with “Aboriginal and white parents and representatives of the various administrative and ancillary bodies concerned to discuss mutual problems”.

The article and table describe a number of ‘facts’ and make deductions, based on the unchallenged wisdom of psychologists, which purport to ‘explain’ problems in Aboriginal education. Indeed, the table is a succinct statement of the kind of explanatory system which has been used in Aboriginal education; an explanatory system which deserves close examination in the light of the failure of Aboriginal education over the last 130 years. The comments which follow, then, are not directed exclusively at the paper under discussion; they refer to general problems of explanation in Aboriginal education.

The following article discusses a program introduced at Millchester State School to allow children to borrow audio-visual equipment for home use. The principal, Mr. Jim Litzow, notes that,

Teenagers in the Western world are increasingly vocal in their demands for “relevance” in their school experience. Young Aboriginal men in their teens (although perhaps not fully conscious of what they are doing, or able to verbalize their feelings) are also “demanding” relevance in their school experience by several kinds of passive resistance. Two examples of this resistance are, that attendance at some Northern Territory schools is extremely low, and that young men trained in various trade courses are generally working in other trades. The educational system, of course, is not solely responsible for this situation, but we should respond to this new “post colonial” mood in Aboriginal communities. Examples of the “post colonial” era are: that Aboriginals know they are free to resist white pressures to work or attend school, or in fact to do anything “white”; that local Aboriginal councils are assuming much more responsibility for local management; that local Aboriginals cherish their new found power to say which white people can or cannot live in their community, and so on. Our prediction is that if schools don’t move with the times we will find that schools in Aboriginal communities will soon begin to appear to Aboriginals as the last “white strongholds” in these communities; that is “white” in terms of initiatives, in terms of ultimate authority, in terms of environmental setting, materials used, times at which things are done and content of what is taught.

For the white teacher to say, “But I’m open to Aboriginals taking more initiative”, is hardly practical because the Aboriginal teenager has not learned to be sufficiently aggressive or expressive to take initiatives in the face of the technologically dominant white teacher; therefore the first initiative-to-allow-initiative must be taken by the white teacher.

The project I am about to describe was born out of a necessity to encourage children to realize that there are PEOPLE, PLACES and THINGS outside Camooweal. To most of us, this statement is obvious, but to some of the children of this insular community such an awareness appears to be neither important nor even necessary.

At the very outset let me assure you that this project was not our only method of teaching Social Studies, but rather an approach which we thought might stimulate the children of this area firstly to accept and then to enjoy learning about the ways of life of other people. Social Studies in a remote area can be uninspiring if initially the only method of gathering knowledge is through books and an occasional out-dated film. Since the children I teach respond to the visual approach, I decided to “paint-out” our Social Studies discussions. The place we chose for such an experiment was under the school where there were available large panels of wall space as well as several cement columns.

Aboriginal Studies at the Canberra College of Advanced Education has achieved a reputation as being one of the most favoured series of units available. Although it has immense popularity within Teacher Education, Aboriginal Studies also attracts a large number of students from other schools at the college. Its level of appeal is reflected in the content of the two units available. Unit I of the course aims at introducing students to a pre-contemporary understanding of the Aboriginal, his kinship, religion, habitat, livelihood, art, music and pre-history. Coincidentally, Unit 2 examines problems of Aboriginal-White contact in our society, its associated prejudices and cultural conflicts.

Why is it that such a large number of students are seeking enrolment in Aboriginal Studies? I think interest predominates all other motives. In my case, as an undergraduate, this course filled a chasm in my education: it introduced me to an in-depth cultural and social analysis of a race different from my own. The urge to learn more about the Aboriginal, his culture and contact with white society, overshadowed the usual ambition of ‘study to pass’.

It was this interest that generated an inner feeling of awareness for Aboriginal culture and a self-realization of my attitudes toward Aborigines. People I talked with had similar experiences, and it was agreed that this was a latent function of the course.