(One of the recommendations of the Schools Commission Aboriginal Consultative Group was that each department set up a Consultative Committee. Various of the State Departments have moved in this direction. Queensland was the first state to establish such a committee, and that committee has now presented personally to the Director General of Education in Queensland, its first report. We reproduce the Summary of Advice given by the Consultative Committee to the Director General, together with a list of members of the committee and its terms of reference. We know this will be of great interest to similar groups in other states and also to teachers and others concerned with the education of Aboriginal children. Ed.)

One of the benefits provided for in the Aboriginal Secondary Grants Scheme is funding for students to take part in school excursions. For students in remote areas, this provision is very necessary and important. Teachers very willingly plan and supervise excursions each year and the effort that they put in is commendable. However, not all excursions are eventually seen by teachers, students or parents as successful. It would appear therefore that some evaluation of excursions is warranted.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Consultative Committee to the Director General of Education has presented its first report, as a result of its meetings and investigations during 1977.

(Mr Glennon provides a description of a project, funded by the Schools Commission, which will commence in 1978…Ed.)

I have now completed three years as Aboriginal Remedial and Supportive Teacher at Cleveland St. Boys High School. I have come to the decision that while my present role is worthwhile, the numbers of students at the school whom I do not reach are an alarming and significant proportion. These children are the ‘chronic truants’ some of whom have spent as little as two days in an entire year at school. These children invariably (I shall cite specific cases later) end up before the Childrens Court at Yasmar and thence are sent to institutions. The charges levelled at these boys range from truancy, through petty crimes to breaking and entry, and assault and robbery. In ninety per cent of the cases that I have been associated with the offences were committed during school hours.

As the cases over a period of time have been so consistent and cover boys of all academic calibre, there can be no doubt that an alternative curriculum must be developed for these children.

Six Aboriginal girls participated in this program in 1977. The girls board at Kirinari Girls Hostel, Allambie Heights.

Mr Landy, the Headmaster of the Far West Hospital School, agreed to have the girls work in the school. I also sought permission for two of the girls to work in the hospital; this was granted by the sister-in-charge of the hospital.

The girls spent each Monday working with the teachers in the school and in the hospital.

For the first three weeks I collected the girls each day from the hostel, took them to the school and then home again. They then travelled independently to and from the hostel and school. This they did with no mishaps. As the girls were from isolated country areas, I was concerned about the travelling, even though it involved catching one bus for a relatively short distance.

At the 1977 Small Schools Conference in the Northern Territory a great deal of concern was expressed by representatives from all over the Territory about the lack of continuity in small schools. One manifestation of this was the absence, in many cases, of meaningful student records that allow a new teacher to immediately make some valid assessment of the attainment levels of his students that he is about to meet for the first time. Allied to this problem is the lack of old programs to show the new teacher what has been done in the past. Teachers coming into such a situation are therefore likely to suffer drastically from the “what am I doing here” syndrome. And in the middle of the bush, 400km from one’s immediate superior, help is NOT as close as the telephone.

It was, I think, the concensus of the Conference that the Department should stipulate a minimum standard for the keeping of educational records (as distinct from stock records, stamp records, maintenance and repair records, and other types of administrivia too numerous to mention which are the bane of the small school teacher’s existence, and are probably one of the reasons adequate educational records are not kept anyway) to ensure that new teachers coming into the area do not have to spend the first six months trying to determine what the children know or don’t know, what tools are available to fill the lamentable gaps, and devising methods to put these into operation. And if the teacher is only at the schools for one year, it doesn’t leave much time for teaching anything new to the children.

Oodnadatta Aboriginal School has for a considerable time involved the community in its activities. From this liaison has grown several services to the community by the school which have become an indispensable part of the way of life in this most northern town in South Australia. Apart from comprehensive self-improvement and recreational courses offered through the Department of Further Education, the school offers a library service to the town and district.

Early in 1976, I, an avid reader myself, set about to overcome the void created by a total lack of community library facilities other than the Country Lending service. The school already had a comprehensive library available and the obvious move was to establish a community library. A committee was formed, representing the school staff, the school council and the local Progress Association. However, it was felt that to establish a library along the guidelines set out, would not suit this community, mainly because of its very small size (about 300) and the short length of residence of most citizens. An alternative scheme was adopted, whereby the school takes out bulk loans from the Schools Library Board, the State Library and the Port Augusta Public Library. These stocks are periodically rotated so that there is always a new range of material available. (An important factor that could not be achieved if we purchased our own book stock, or even followed the guidelines of a 10% turnover per annum, as indicated in the School Community Library plan.)

After spending five terms working in the library at Oodnadatta Special Aboriginal School, I can now say I have achieved something. However, this achievement cannot be measured by an up-to-date catalogue and an extensive picture file, for example. What I have created is a library and library borrowing scheme which works for the children in this school.

In the first instance I set about to structure the physical layout of the library so that each section was very clearly separated. Basically,we have an Easy Fiction, Fiction and Non-fiction section. Because reading achievement in this school is limited and reading ages low, I have played up the Easy Fiction section. We have used more shelves than in any other section and each shelf is backed with brightly coloured material. We display, with covers showing, as many books as possible, and only use the very bottom shelves for storing our books. These displays are changed daily by our aides, who are now an integral part of library functioning, as I am the pre-school teacher here and I have accepted the library merely as an area of responsibility.

Because our more mature students are unsophisticated, there is little need to buy much material specifically for them, for they will read picture books with enthusiasm provided they are attractively displayed. At this time, we are cashing in on a gimmicky approach to encourage use of the library, rather than just the desire to read. The library is carpeted and curtained. We have removed a blackboard and replaced it with backed hessian, which we use for art display. We manufactured a listening-post from a high jump stand. We have removed tables and chairs and now have only a charge desk and chair and one low table for specific displays. We read on the floor. Because we have a storeroom for large audio-visual equipment, and our film projector and video are on moveable trolleys, (service trolleys) we do not use the library for these activities. This has helped us to channel the emphasis towards reading and books rather than use of the library as a general activities area.

During 1977, Ms Kathleen Miller and Mr Adrian Haydock operated an innovation program for disadvantaged children at the Kewdale Development Centre. A high proportion of the children attending the centre were Aboriginal, and so the Aboriginal Education Branch was approached for assistance in designing a suitable course. Mr Eric Hayward, an Aboriginal liaison officer, visited the Centre and suggested a community-based program similar to that outlined in a branch report entitled Minority Groups and the “Foxfire” Experience. Since then, the enthusiasm of the two teachers and the interest of the Aboriginal Education Branch have developed the project to the stage where the following report has been prepared.

For many children, belonging to a minority group with its varying degrees of alienation from mainstream society, presents an obstacle to success in the normal curriculum. With Aboriginal children in particular, it is known that excessive numbers of high school students are operating at basic levels and below. There are many factors that contribute to this situation. Yet there is one factor, possessing two facets, that probably overrides all others. This factor is aptly expressed in the following statement from the Ontario Ministry of Education in 1975:

(Readers are referred to an earlier report on this project – The Aboriginal Child at School, 4,5,1976.. Ed.)

In February 1975, Inala High School was selected as the location for a project to develop guidance and counselling services for Aboriginal students. The source of funding was the Commonwealth Department of Aboriginal Affairs. Inala was chosen because of the relatively high concentration of Aboriginal families in what is, essentially a working class district of approximately thirty thousand people. There are also significantly high proportions of migrants from non-English speaking countries and single parent families. Staffing has grown from a part-time guidance officer and and full-time Aboriginal counsellor based at the High School, to a guidance officer, a guidance counsellor, two Aboriginal education counsellors, a Secondary teacher and a teacher aide working from a centre within the community and serving all of the primary and secondary schools.

The development of the project has been guided by the philosophy of such educationalists as McConnochie (1973) that the failure of Aboriginals to succeed at school is primarily a result of factors associated with our social institutions rather than the Aboriginal child himself. McConnochie suggests that our institutions tend to debase the black child’s concept of himself and the group with whom he identifies; and it is the child’s consequent lack of self-esteem that contributes significantly to his low vocational aspirations and academic achievement. However, low vocational aspirations and achievement themselves interact, reinforcing the child’s negative self-concept and he becomes caught up in a self-sustaining cycle of increasing school failure and worthlessness.