Self-determination can close the gap – comment by CEO Craig Robertson

Even though NAIDOC week (which was due to start yesterday) has been postponed till November we’ve decided to examine the role TAFEs play in lifting the life choices and chances for the descendants of the original inhabitants of our land.

At the end of this piece we have a link to stories of achievement on our website. Take the time to read them – they will kick your week off to a good start.

In another coincidence, or deft planning, the Joint Council on Closing the Gap met on Friday and signed off new targets for closing the gap which will be put to national cabinet.

Media tells us that the education and training targets for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are to lift the proportion: of 25-34-year-olds with a tertiary qualification to 70 per cent; youth (15-24) in employment or training to 67 per cent; and 25-64 year-olds in employment to 62 per cent.

Australia’s track record hasn’t been terrific. Prime Minister Morrison in his Closing the Gap speech this past February said closing the gap was ‘a tale of good intentions. Indeed good faith,’ but went on to say the hope turned to ‘frustration and disappointment.’

Only education is on track to meet existing targets – 95 per cent of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander four-year-olds enrolled in early childhood education by 2025 and halving the gap in Year 12, or equivalent, attainment by 2020.

Perhaps the most far reaching aspect of the plan is the commitment to self-determination in setting actions to meet these targets.

We’ve known about the power of self-determination for some time – it powers centre right and centre left politics and underpins democracy.
This philosophy has been alive in the centre of the Commonwealth bureaucracy for some time. Whatever one thinks of Ken Henry’s performance in the Banking Royal Commission, his ground-breaking work when he was Head of the Australian Treasury sets a useful framework for closing the gap and more.

The Treasury-developed Wellbeing Framework[1] ‘starts with a broad-ranging statement that wellbeing primarily reflects a person’s substantive freedom to lead a life they have reason to value. This language reflects a pluralistic approach to understanding wellbeing, drawn from the capabilities approach of Amartya Sen.

This basic freedom (what many in education would call agency) was beautifully expounded by the Prime Minister in February. He spoke of a note on file from a Commissioner of Native Welfare about whether a boy should be provided pocket money of 75 cents a week. The Prime Minister said, “Bureaucrats making decisions for what they paternally called ‘a good type of lad’. Think about a life where even the most basic decision making is stripped away from you – by governments thinking they know better. Fortunately, that boy was bigger than the times, and I’m honoured that he now sits behind me as the Minister for Indigenous Australians. He knows that responsibility and empowerment is freedom.”

While achievements of the VET sector for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons has been good, the Productivity Commission reports that students living in remote or very remote areas have fared worse — 28 per cent fewer students completed a government‑funded VET qualification in 2018 than in 2009.[2]

One of the articles on our web is from Charles Darwin University. Last year they commissioned Dr Melinda Waters to identify the success factors for vocational and tertiary education for Indigenous Australians in remote communities in the NT.

It’s difficult to go past the summary Melinda makes, so I leave you to contemplate it as we seek to work in unison in closing the gap.

One approach to VET will not fit the diversity of regional and remote Indigenous communities. What works for Indigenous VET learners can only be really understood in the context of their local culture and community.

Relational pedagogies based on care, trust and respect, common across all the case studies, are producing positive outcomes for students including the skills, knowledge and attributes students need for work and a range of other benefits such as an enhanced sense of confidence and personal empowerment, general life skills gained through inside/outside learning and opportunities to further a career in their community.

The complex and demanding work of CDU’s VET educators is occurring in partnership with local Indigenous organisations and communities, non-Indigenous employers, regional councils, national park authorities, early learning centres, day respite centres, government agencies and a range of other service providers committed to supporting regional and remote community development for the long-term.

The case studies suggest that VET is most successful for regional and remote Indigenous students when it is directly related to local work opportunities, when delivery models are highly flexible and innovative, when there is strong and consistent learner support embedded in real work activities, and when VET educators – both Indigenous and non-Indigenous – have the right mix of skills, capabilities and attributes to work in regional and remote Indigenous contexts.

Measuring VET in terms of completion and employment outcomes does not capture the full benefits CDU VET is delivering for NT’s regional and remote Indigenous students or the complex and valuable work regional and remote VET educators are doing to support them.

There are broader messages for the sector as it struggles to imagine beyond competency and compliance. Self-determination – capability as the Treasury’s Wellbeing Framework would call it – maybe holds the key.

Enjoy the stories on our web.