COLLOQUIUM Addressing Educational Inequity for Urban Indigenous Students

ABSTRACT This colloquium outlines some of the background issues that affect the schooling experience for Indigenous students in Australia. It discusses the importance of each of the issues to raise the level of awareness about them. In this way, it is hoped that teachers will be sensitised to their importance and incorporate a consideration of them in their programmes for young children. The scale of educational inequity remains vast for Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and continues, despite considerable work particularly over the last decade by all governments. (Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs [MCEETYA], 1996, p. 4) It has long been recognised that Indigenous students are the most disadvantaged group in Australia’s education system (Ritchie & Edwards, 1996). Approximately 70 % of non-Indigenous students in year 3 met the identified standards for performance in reading and writing in the 1996 National English Literacy Survey. Yet, less than 20 % of Indigenous students met the reading standards and less than 30 % met the writing standards (Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs [DETYA], 2000a). Research has shown that federal initiatives, by the way of funding schemes (e.g. ABSTUDY), have not had significant impact on the effectiveness of Aboriginal children’s education (Gibson, 1998). Research carried out by DETYA (2000c) has identified areas of concern, and it is obvious that more needs to be done to improve the educational opportunities for Indigenous students so that they can succeed at school. Educational opportunity is the right of all Australians. It has been noted that we will not achieve a democratic society until Indigenous Australians can choose from the array o