In previous years, attendance of secondary-age students at Maningrida had declined to a mere handful. And so, at the start of 1976, it was decided to make secondary education at Maningrida a priority within the school.

To this end, money and effort were directed towards the setting up of a secondary unit. The main objective was to increase the number of secondary students attending school. We tried to do this by encouraging those adolescents who were not otherwise employed in the settlement to come along to school, and to see whether or not the secondary unit offered them a desirable alternative.

A one and a half year study of listening and reading among rural children in north-west New South Wales, indicated marked differences among Aborigines and whites in listening and reading. A Motivation for School Schedule, included in the initial test battery predicted over fifty per cent of variance in listening comprehension, administered at the end of years 2 and 3, for Aboriginal girls, and was significant in a multiple regression with Aboriginal girls’ end of year three reading scores as the criterion. The schedule contributed little, if anything, towards predicting reading success for white children or Aboriginal boys.

The research underlines the importance of teachers understanding the conflict some girls from minority groups face when attending schools organized by the dominant culture, particularly when the vocabulary of the dominant language is assumed to be understood by all children in the same way.

It is intended that this program will be in keeping with the recommendations of the Report to the Schools Commission by the Aboriginal Consultative Group. In particular we refer to Recommendation 8:-

The use of Aboriginal Studies “courses” with non-Aboriginal children has long taken a simplistic form to say the least, which has done little to overcome any of the typical white oriented prejudices which have existed for so long.

In Volume 4 No. 4, we published extracts from “Access to Education: An Evaluation of the Aboriginal Secondary Grants Scheme”. In this issue I have included the report on the evaluation which I wrote for the Aboriginal and Islander parents who participated in the evaluation program; all participating parents were posted a copy. I believe it is important for them to know the results of the research to which they contributed and which, indeed, would not have been possible without their willing co-operation. In this report to parents I have indicated the extent to which the recommendations have been implemented by the Australian Government …B.H.W.

In 1974, the Government asked me if I would find out how well the Aboriginal Secondary Grants Scheme was working, how the children were getting on, and how the parents felt about it. They also asked me to make any recommendations about the Scheme that I thought would make it better.

I worked with a group of people on this because we needed to talk to Aboriginal and Islander secondary students and their parents all round Australia. The map on the back page shows the towns that we visited. In our group, there were Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people who talked to the students and their parents. The Aboriginal people were Mrs Mary King, Mrs Alice Stephan, Mrs Rita Huggins, Mrs Belle McLeod, Miss Marie Callope, Miss Edwina Merrypor and Miss Sue Chilly. The non-Aboriginal people were Mrs Pat Garcia, Mr Bob Lingard, Mr Richard Guy, Mrs Alice Fry, Mrs Marilyn Redlich, Mrs Jan Lord and myself.