Degrees of difference

Low expectations of student's ability is reflected in Homeland Learning teachers instructions to only teach Indigenous secondary students the 2x, 5x and 10x tables.

Many Aboriginal people have decred the failure of these "Homeland Learning Centres". In The Australian recentlyGallarwuy Yunupingui asked "please give us real teaching". Alison Anderson, Independent Member of the Legislative Assembly for the Northern Territory has said that: "Separate is never equal –there is not a black way of educating a child or a white way of educating a child but a right way." In The Drum Anthony Dillion points out that 'the ideology that Indigenous people are a separate, special, different race of people requiring a set of rules to live by' has held them back.

A report by the Commonwealth Department of Finance released under a Freedom of Information requestshows that it is not lack of funds which is the problem, but that these funds have not been spent appropriately. Poor policy decisions influenced by separatist ideologies have resulted in dismal outcomes for Indigenous Australians. Despite annual expenditure of $3.5 billion the situation for many Indigenous Australians is as bad now as it was in the 1970s.

Well intended as some of these separatist 'culturally appropriate' policies were they have caused more harm than good. The fear that Aboriginal people would lose their culture if they became too westernized led to the ghettoziation of Aboriginal people in remote outstations. Living on their traditional land is their right, but government policies made that return to country a one way ticket.

Separate education policies for Indigenous students have denied them the same education opportunities that other Australians enjoy.

Without proper standards of education Aboriginal people have been consigned to life on welfare or channelled into dead-end CDEP 'jobs' and segregated Aboriginal career stream positions like Aboriginal Teaching Assistants, Aboriginal Health Workers, Aboriginal Community Police Officers, and Indigenous Ranger programs.

Rather than empowering people with the benefits of employment, these positions reinforce the perception that Aboriginal people cannot cope in a mainstream job. Why should Aboriginal children value education if they can't see a real job at the end of it?

The degree of difference between the standard Census form and the form used in some discrete remote communities may be slight but the 'need' for a separate form highlights the disturbing double standards that exist for remote Indigenous Australians.