There is no more pressing issue for Australian educators than Indigenous student outcomes. Despite all of the money spent and all of the efforts made, the disparity between outcomes for Indigenous and non-Indigenous students remains profound.
The Productivity Commission’s report on Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage noted that there is “little if any gap in cognitive ability between young Indigenous and non-Indigenous children. However, a gap in school performance is evident as early as Year 1. This gap widens over time, and as the degree of remoteness increases.”
The report found that in literacy and numeracy, “there has been negligible change in Indigenous students’ performance over the past 10 years, and no closing of the gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students’ performances.”
I believe school leaders have a great role to play in turning this around. Dare to Lead is a national project funded by the Australian Government supporting principals to make a difference for Indigenous students at all stages of education. Principals, working collaboratively with their school community, need to make this issue personal and take whatever steps are necessary to ensure Indigenous education in their schools is addressed in a committed, informed and collaborative manner.
There are schools across Australia where this is happening – government, Catholic and independent schools, in remote settings as well as metropolitan contexts, primary and secondary. These schools typically are led by principals who have made a personal commitment to improve outcomes. A wide array of strategies is used, but these are almost invariably underpinned by: strategic use of data; connectedness to the local Indigenous community; a willingness to persist over time; and openness to working in partnership.
At Swan View Senior High School we rejected the deficit model and tried to lead students towards more meaningful futures. We did so in a partnership with two other local secondary schools. By clustering around the issue of post-secondary pathways for our Indigenous students we were able to pool resources, work collegially and develop complimentary rather than competing programs.
Indigenous student numbers continue to grow at a rapid rate – within a few years one in every four WA government primary school students will be Indigenous – which means this is an issue that will only get bigger.
It doesn’t matter the system, sector or the location; what matters is providing leadership to achieve genuine improvement in this most crucial of areas. Dare to Lead is working with What Works and the Stronger Smarter Institute - the three projects are using their different strengths to work towards one goal. Dare to Lead supports the principals of more than 5000 Australian schools via professional development; collegial work focused in geographically-determined action areas; provision of resources; and collegial snapshots conducted in individual schools.
We need to look at expanding the traditional parameters of school involvement as a way of addressing outcomes for Indigenous students. Some of my primary colleagues are looking at the years between birth and formal schooling, partnering with childcare providers, establishing play groups, and examining ways to improve transition from preschool to primary.
At the other end of the scale, the notion that a school’s responsibility to a student ends when they exit secondary school is being rethought in a number of schools, including Swan View SHS. The establishment of worthwhile and viable pathways to higher education and the workforce is as an essential part of the ‘contract’ secondary schools make when an Indigenous student is enrolled.
Working to redress the inequality of outcomes has a strong moral imperative. It is also working towards something the Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs (MCEECDYA) has marked as its top priority. The six areas it has pinpointed as having the most impact on closing the gap align with Dare to Lead’s findings: readiness for school; engagement and connections; attendance; literacy and numeracy; leadership, quality teaching and workforce development; and pathways to real post-school options.
There is a gilt-edged opportunity to make a better tomorrow by working with the next generation of leaders who are in schools today. At the launch of Dare to Lead in 2003 it was said that ‘Something must be done, and something can be done’. That remains true. But the doing is up to those who work in schools, making incremental improvements all the time.
Rob Nairn is president of the WA Secondary School Executives Association, former principal of Swan View SHS, deputy chair of Principals Australia and a member of the Dare to Lead steering committee.
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