Annotated Timeline

EST203 – Assignment 1

Melissa Yost – s265518

Jemma Dodt – s265759
Alexandra Hill – s196531
Christopher Macaskill-Hants – s240367
Prakalpana Fernando – s197474

Next
The following PowerPoint is an annotated timeline
outlining what Group 22 believed to be the five most
significant policies and practices in Indigenous
Education.
This timeline runs from more historical times in 1814
when the first Indigenous school was established, and
goes on to identify more contemporary policies and
practices created in the last fifty years.

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 • The First Indigenous School
1814 – • Melissa Yost (s265518)
1820

• Bilingual Education in the Northern Territory

1970 - • Jemma Dodt (s265759)
1980

• National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy

1989 • Alexandra Hill (s196531)

• National Strategy for the Education of Aboriginal and Torres

1996 – Strait Islander People
2002 • Chris Macaskill-Hants (s240367)

2007 - • Closing the Gap Action Plan

2014 • Prakalpana Fernando (s197474)

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Who/What/Where:
The ‘Black Native Institute’ was the first school for Indigenous Australians. It was
opened in January of 1814 by Governor Lachlan Macquarie, in Parramatta, New South
Wales (Myplace.edu.au, 2015).

Purpose:
The ‘Black Native Institute’ was designed to ‘improve’, ‘Christianise’ and ‘civilise’
Aboriginal students through the instruction of reading, writing and religious
education, as well as providing manual labour training for the attending males and
sewing instruction for the females (Dictionaryofsydney.org, 2015). The school aimed to
‘civilise’ the Aboriginal people of New South Wales and turn them into a more
‘domesticated’ and ‘industrious’ people.

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When:
Over the short course of the Parramatta Native Institute’s six year life span, a total of
thirty-two students were enrolled. A lot of Indigenous families were hesitant to let
their children attend, as once enrolled, the children were required to live at the
Institute, and were no longer allowed to return to their families or to their former,
more traditional ways of life (Myplace.edu.au, 2015).

Impact:
Despite the Institute’s low enrolments and overall downfall, there was one student,
Maria Lock, whose academic achievements were cited as a success. She surpassed
twenty students from the Institute, as well as one hundred non-indigenous students in
a school examination, winning first prize. The school closed in 1820, accused of not
reaching its main goals (Myplace.edu.au, 2015).

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Purpose:
In the 1970’s Australia initiated bilingual education in Indigenous community schools
within the Northern Territory. In 1972 the Minister for Education, Kim Beazley Snr,
proposed that education within Indigenous schools should be taught through the use
of local language. The aim was for students to be slowly introduced to English
Literacy, so they were not overwhelmed by the work and also to open a window for
parents to become involved with their children’s education (Devlin, 2014).

Who:
There were many people involved with introducing bilingual education into
schools. Besides government ministers and staff, there were also specialists that were
employed to help and transition the regular staff into the new policy of
teaching. These specialists included linguists, literacy workers and literature
production supervisors (Devlin, 2014).

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Impact:
The introduction to bilingual education in the early years of the 1970’s affected many
of the Indigenous schools across the Northern Territory. Within three years, bilingual
education had taken form in twenty-two Aboriginal languages (as cited by Devlin,
2014). By 1998 forty-seven percent of Aboriginal students in remote communities
attended schools that had bilingual education programs, with an approximate
enrolment rate of 3,783 students (Community Education Centre, n.d.).

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What:
The 1989 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy (NATSIEP)
outlines twenty-one national goals aimed at bettering Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander education and training Australia-wide. The NATSIEP (1989) was established in
response to the continually poor educational outcomes of Indigenous Australians. The
main objective was to create equity in education and training outcomes for Indigenous
Australians (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2013).

Who/When:
In 1988, the Australian government developed a Task Force to focus on how to
improve Indigenous Australians poor educational outcomes. The Task Force later
announced that a policy, addressing the educational needs of Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander people, would be developed by the Federal Minister for Employment,
Education and Training by 1989, and come into affect by 1stJanuary 1990. From here,
Australian States, Territories and the Commonwealth began to jointly assist in
developing this policy (Australian Government, 2015). Releasing the NATSIEP (1989)
now meant there was a legal document stating how to effectively address the
educational needs of Aboriginal people (Commonwealth of Australia, 1989).
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Impact:
Once brought into effect, the impact was Australia wide, with all Australian States and
Territories, as well as the Commonwealth (together with non-government education
authorities and institutions) all in agreement to co-operate. This co-operation involved
arrangements regarding, “strategic planning, financial resourcing and the monitoring
and reporting of progress towards attainment of agreed goals” (Commonwealth of
Australia, 1989).

This policy gave greater recognition to addressing the educational needs of Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander people, and was only the beginning for later educational
plans and initiatives in the future.

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What:
The National Strategy for the Education of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples
(1996) was the result of a national review of NATSIEP (1989) outcomes performed by
the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs
(MCEETYA). Under this strategy the twenty-one goals of the AEP were refined into
eight priority areas, with establishment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
participation in educational decision making foremost among them (Ministerial
Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, 2000).

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Who/When/Where: Whilst the 1995 MCEETYA report acknowledged broad progress across
Indigenous education metrics including attendance, literacy and numeracy, “the scale of
educational inequality remained vast for Indigenous Australians” (Ibid.). The revised strategy
shifted the focus of NATSIEP to specific education outcomes especially concerning literacy,
numeracy and Indigenous involvement. In 1999 the Taskforce on Indigenous Education was
established to report on progress resultant from the 1996 reforms.

Impact:
Statistical measures proved difficult to interpret between 1996 and 2002 census due to a
dramatic increase in personal identification as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander heritage across
all levels of education. Despite this confounding data, rates of retention in schools and year 12
graduation demonstrated significant improvement, leading the Taskforce on Indigenous
Education to establishing educational equality for Indigenous Australians as a realistic and
attainable goal to be achieved in years rather than generation in subsequent reporting (Australian
Bureau of Statistics, 1996 & 2002; MCEETYA, 2000).

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What/When:
In March of 2008, the Indigenous Health Summit wrapped up with the Prime Minister,
Keven Rudd, declaring a statement on behalf of the Australian Government and the
Indigenous people of Australia. The statement described their intent to work together
to achieve equality in health status and life expectancy between Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander peoples and non-Indigenous Australians by the year 2030. This was the
very first time that such a high level of obligations had been made by the Australian
state and territory governments and others, raising the possibility of substantial
improvement in the health and wellbeing of Indigenous people (Coag.gov.au, 2015).

Purpose:
As stated by Australian Indigenous Health, ‘Closing the Gap’ is a policy that aims to
decrease Indigenous disadvantage through education, with respect to life expectancy,
child mortality, access to early childhood education, educational achievement, and
employment outcomes (Coag.gov.au, 2015).

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Who/Where:
The majority of Australians are fortunate to have one of the highest life expectancies
of any country in the world (Coag.gov.au, 2015). However, this is not same nor is it
true for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, so on 20th December 2007, the
council of the Australian Government, including the leaders of federal, state, territory,
and the local governments all agreed to commit to “Closing the Gap”, between the life
spans of non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australians (Coag.gov.au, 2015). The council
of the Australian Government also agreed to be accountable for reaching this goal
within a specific timeframe, thus aiming to improve the overall health of Indigenous
Australians across the country.

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This PowerPoint outlined what our group believed to be the five
most significant policies and practices in the history of
Indigenous Education.
Our group worked well together, mainly communicating verbally,
on a face-to-face basis, with added online discussion.
We each delegated roles and responsibilities, so as to create an
even workload for all group members. Overall, this experience
was successful.

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• Australian Bureau of Statistics (1996) Participation in Education: The education of Indigenous people. Retrieved from the Australian Bureau of
Statistics website:
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/2f762f95845417aeca25706c00834efa/6D2BBEC76269F952CA2570EC0073DF07?opendocu
ment
• Australian Bureau of Statistics (2002) Participation in Education: Education of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.Retrieved from Australian
Bureau of Statistics website:
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/2f762f95845417aeca25706c00834efa/E9EDC3C77168A3D2CA2570EC000AF328?opendocu
ment
• Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2013). National Report on Schooling in Australia 2009. Retrieved from
http://www.acara.edu.au/reporting/national_report_on_schooling_2009/aboriginal_and_torres_strait_islander_e
ducation/aboriginal_and_torres_strait_islander_education1.html
• Australian Government, Department of Education and Training. (2015). National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy 1989.
Retrieved from https://www.education.gov.au/national-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-education-policy-1989
• Coag.gov.au,. (2015). Closing the Gap in Indigenous Disadvantage | Council of Australian Governments (COAG). Retrieved 18 August 2015, from
https://www.coag.gov.au/closing_the_gap_in_indigenous_disadvantage
• Commonwealth of Australia, Department of Employment, Education and Training. (1989). National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education
policy: joint policy statement
• Community Education Centre, Maningrida. (n.d.). Maningrida CEC: Bilingual
Education. Schools.nt.edu.au.http://www.schools.nt.edu.au/maningrida/OLDwebsite/bilingual.htm
• Devlin, B. (2014). Two Way Teaching And Learning. Chapter 4: A bilingual education policy issue: Biliteracy versus English-only literacy. Camberwell,
Vic. ACER Press
• Dictionaryofsydney.org,. (2015). Parramatta and Black Town Native Institutions. Retrieved 18 August 2015, from
http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/parramatta_and_black_town_native_institutions#page=3&ref=
• Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (2000). Report of MCEETYA Taskforce on Indigenous Education. Retrieved
from Education Council website:
http://www.scseec.edu.au/site/DefaultSite/filesystem/documents/Reports%20and%20publications/Publications/C
ultural%20inclusion%20and%20ATSI/Report%20of%20the%20MCEETYA%20Taskforce%20on%20Indigenous%20Ed
ucation%20(2000).pdf
• Myplace.edu.au,. (2015). 1810s | My Place for teachers. Retrieved 18 August 2015, from
http://www.myplace.edu.au/decades_timeline/1810/decade_landing_19.html?tabRank=3
• Image retrieved from https://www.cancersa.org.au/assets/images/AllanSumnerBanner.jpg

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