The Power of Diversity – comment by CEO Craig Robertson

For someone who has spent half of his life learning or teaching bible stories the one of the Tower of Babel was particularly curious. From Genesis, it tells of the Babylonians building a tower to the sky to reach for their God and, possibly more pointedly, to demonstrate their closeness to God to ward off enemies.

According to the legend ascribed to this Old Testament story the tower could be built because the citizens had the one language which gave them the power to coordinate. God was displeased that their self-sufficiency was leading to pride. So different languages were imposed on the people. Unable to communicate, building came to a halt and the people dispersed to all ends of the earth.

Scholars interpret the story as the fable which explains the start of different language groups in the ancient world.

Let’s imagine if that one language world were continued. Would our problems be solved? Would there have been no wars? Could differences be worked through? Would we be in a richer, fairer world?

I can’t tell, but it is clear that Australia is far richer, economically and culturally, from its multi-cultural heritage. I would expect a fair portion of the readers of this newsletter can attest to this fact given almost half of the Australian population was born overseas or have parents born overseas. With 7 of the 10 countries of origin of migrants being non-English speaking countries we’ve also benefited from multi-lingual perspectives. At the base interpersonal level the process of bringing different languages and meanings together enriches understanding.

Australia’s heritage is deep in global terms. Genomic research^[1] reveals Papuan and Aboriginal ancestors arose from a single movement out of Africa around 72,000 years ago and Aboriginal populations have inhabited the land continuously, including Tasmania, since that time.

This is NAIDOC week under the theme of Heal Country, Heal our Nation. All of Australia benefits immensely if we heed the message from the original inhabitants of this land.

Aboriginal languages taught in TAFEs tell the story of the diverse needs TAFE respond to. Details of the Aboriginal language programs are provided on our website for TAFE NSW and Charles Darwin University.

Just this past week someone from Bachelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education in the NT was relaying their success in the program preparing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders for service in armed forces. Of the participants in the program 96 percent completed and of those who chose to enter basic training 85 percent completed. Bachelor was the winner last year of the Industry Partnership award for the 2020 Australian Training Awards as a result. The key ingredient to success was the translation between cultural settings – of the young Indigenous participants and that of the defence.

Maybe, and even bizarrely, an all-knowing God foresaw the danger of one language group and ultimately a mono-cultural society.

Just as there is danger in monolingualism there is danger in one-track thinking and one-track solution making.

There’s a message for VET. The expectation that competency is the only solution, and the only outcome is a job, even if the job is poorly paid and insecure, leaves the VET sector in a poorer place.

MonoVETism doesn’t help.

Diversity brings success because it’s built on seeking different understandings.

The Tower of Babel tells one message of the folly of self-sufficiency and arrogance, but more importantly, NAIDOC tells us here and now of the benefits from working with diversity, not only to heal the nation but in our education and training systems more broadly.