The College of Aboriginal Education was set up in March 1973 within the Torrens College of Advanced Education, Adelaide, to provide an opportunity for adult Aboriginal people to continue their education in areas meaningful to them. It offers a highly individualized twelve month course which emphasizes the development of positive self concepts, an understanding of society and the development of positive attitudes to it, and the finding of satisfying employment.

The students come from a wide range of backgrounds and include both tribal and non-tribal people. At present 45 students are enrolled. The staff includes both Aboriginals and Euro-Australians. The College makes use of a large number of part-time teachers, many of whom are Aboriginal, while other people, including both Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals expert in their own field, are brought in from time to time.

The creation of the College of Aboriginal Education, within the Torrens College of Advanced Education, is to me, one of the most meaningful adventures undertaken within Aboriginal society ever. I would place its importance as equal to, if not above, the success of Senator Neville Bonner, the appointment of Charles Perkins, together with the creation and formation of the National Aboriginal Consultative Committee.

Almost every other program and plan within the framework of Aboriginality is dogged by the criterion of having a measure of success within the eyes of the mainstream of society, which has not and perhaps cannot understand the vein of Aboriginal thinking. This has prevented many good Aboriginal men from adding their two bits of expertise to a successful future within Aboriginality. The College has no prerequisite for entry into the College apart from a strong desire to attend the College for reasons important only to the person applying.

At the Jervis Bay Primary School there is in progress a project which is designed to involve the Aboriginal children at the school (about 25 per cent of the total enrolment) in some educational decision-making. The program is being funded by the Australian Government’s Schools Commission Innovations Program.

It was judged that in the total school environment the Aboriginal children were followers and not initiators and that this was in part attributable to the skills-oriented competitive structure of the classroom system that exists at the school, and in which leadership and success fall largely to the non-Aboriginal pupils.

We decided to institute our Project Program because:

1. 1. a considerable number of our pupils both in the upper Primary and lower Secondary schools have had a record of failure for most of their school career, and

2. 2. the results of both aptitude and attainment tests indicated that the existing school programs were unsuccessful in alleviating this pattern of failure.

I would like to discuss certain aspects of teaching in a predominantly Aboriginal community. I want to stress three major areas which I believe we must think about carefully if we are to educate children successfully, and actually be content in our job.

1. 1. The manner in which we teach the children in our class.

2. 2. Community involvement.

3. 3. The decision-making role of the Aboriginal Community.

The Aboriginal Social Club of Port Augusta has been operating a pre-pre-school for Aboriginal children for the past six months or more. The idea behind this venture was to enable Aboriginal children between the ages of 2½ to 4 years to come together in a playgroup situation where they could experience the social contacts and educational experiences which many middle-class children already experience in the home. Such experiences prepare the children for kindergarten which they attend between the ages of 4 and 5 years.

A multi-cultural education program has been followed in the Augusta Park Kindergarten for the past six months, with such pleasing results that, if introduced in all kindergartens, it could reduce the misunderstandings arising out of ignorance in a multi-cultural environment. This program was based on similar courses in Scandinavia, Germany, the U.S.S.R., Canada and New Zealand, all combined and adapted to the situation in Port Augusta and the Australian situation generally. The basic idea was for the learning to be a two-way process between the Euro-Australian children and the two dominant cultural groups, the Aboriginal and Italian children.

In broad terms education is available to Aboriginal children in the same way as to non-Aboriginal children. That is to say that in most settled areas there are facilities for pre-school kindergartens, primary schools, secondary schools and of course, for the whole of Western Australia there are now 2 Universities, a Technical College, and 2 Teachers’ Training Colleges. Like all other amenities, however, they are more accessible to Aboriginal pupils in certain areas of the State than in others.