Minimbah is an Aboriginal word whichmeans ‘place of learning’. Since self-management in 1987 by the local Aboriginal Management Committee, the school Director, Dianne Roberts has promoted parent, staff and community input at this place of learning. Improved parental involvement in this Aboriginal preschool was essential following the policy change from outside control to self-management.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how sport has come to co-exist with Aboriginal culture, and the changes that have been forthcoming from this union over the years. To assist in collating some data on this subject, a survey was conducted with a number of teachers (12) in the ‘Lands’ schools [see Appendix] and the results were compared to what little literature was available on this particular topic.

According to the 1995 Northern Territory Department of Education Directory, the numberof schools within the Territory which cater for Aboriginal students are as follows:

• 40 preschools in predominantly Aboriginal communities

• 67 primary schools of predominantly Aboriginal communities

• 53 outstations and Homeland Learning Centres in predominantly Aboriginal communities

• 33 Community Education Centres and other post-primary schools in predominantly Aboriginal communities.

With permed hair, academic gowns and proud smiles of achievement, two more groups of Aboriginal women have walked the length of the red carpet on the stage of the Adelaide Festival Theatre during university graduation ceremonies. Amid hoots and cheers from University staff seated on the stage (also wearing gowns and smiles of pride) on the 29th May 1995, six more women from the far north west of South Australia, and one from Alice Springs, were awarded the Associate Diploma of Education. Six months later, on the 6th October 1995, two more women from the north west were presented with the Diploma of Teaching.

The interviews and discussions which are the main focus of this paper were conducted with five experienced teachers involved with Aboriginal education in remote rural schools in the Northern Territory – the minimum experience being five continuous years and the most being 15 years. Although the teachers have had greater experience working in the southern regions of the Northern Territory, many have experience in the Top End, interstate or overseas experience in indigenous and special education. As all ofthe teachers are stationed in the Northern Territory and all are currently teaching or supporting teachers in remote Aboriginal schools, the discussions regarding Aboriginal teacher training specifically concerned courses offered by Batchelor College and predominantly by the Remote Access Teacher Education Course (RATE).

The goals of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy (AEP), the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the broader implications of the High Court's Native Title decision place considerable pressure on the higher education system to move rapidly to achieve equity in access, participation and outcomes for Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians.

In October 1995 a short novel, Tammy Damulkurra, was published by Aboriginal Studies Press. Tammy was the result of a six-week narrative writing program undertaken with a class of teenage girls at Maningrida Community Education Centre, in the Northern Territory. The girls, Charlene Bonson Djarpi-Djarpi, Alison Cooper Gangarnda, Jacqueline Phillips Galamarrjin, Evette Dawn Pascoe, Sabrina Yulumurru Dhurrkay, Rhonda Brown Guykaladawuy, Eileen Bonson Djinjirrow, Simonne Lawrence, Justina Williams Wilinggirra and Roseanne Darcy Wangaytcha, are mostly Burarra, speak English as a second or third language and in 1994 were studying for their General Studies Certificate with me in Eagle Class.