Education Commons^™

The Case For Urgency: Advocating For Indigenous Voice In Education, Kevin P. Gillan, Suzanne Mellor, Jacynta Krakouer

Jacynta Krakouer

In 2004 the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) published an Australian Education Review (AER) on Indigenous Education: The Case for Change: A review of contemporary research on Indigenous education outcomes, AER 47 (Mellor & Corrigan, 2004). In the 13 years since its publication, the state of Indigenous education outcomes has remained substantially unaltered. All the social indicators demonstrate that Australia’s First Nations people continue to be the most socio-economically disadvantaged population cohort in Australian society. This is after decades of continued policy efforts by successive Commonwealth, state and territory governments to ameliorate Indigenous education disadvantage. We still struggle with …

The Case For Urgency: Advocating For Indigenous Voice In Education, Kevin P. Gillan, Suzanne Mellor, Jacynta Krakouer

Suzanne Mellor

In 2004 the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) published an Australian Education Review (AER) on Indigenous Education: The Case for Change: A review of contemporary research on Indigenous education outcomes, AER 47 (Mellor & Corrigan, 2004). In the 13 years since its publication, the state of Indigenous education outcomes has remained substantially unaltered. All the social indicators demonstrate that Australia’s First Nations people continue to be the most socio-economically disadvantaged population cohort in Australian society. This is after decades of continued policy efforts by successive Commonwealth, state and territory governments to ameliorate Indigenous education disadvantage. We still struggle with …

Unfinished Business : Pisa Shows Indigenous Youth Are Being Left Behind, Tony Dreise, Sue Thomson

Dr Sue Thomson

The latest international assessment of students’ mathematical, scientific and reading literacy – the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) – shows that the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students has remained the same for the last decade. In short, Indigenous 15-yearolds remain approximately two-and-a-half years behind their non-Indigenous peers in schooling.

This essay provides a précis of the results and analysis of some of the issues; it compares Indigenous performance in 2012 with that from previous PISA cycles; and discusses a range of implications for policy and practice.