Indigenous Education and Perspectives

Running Head: Indigenous Education and Perspectives 1
INDIGENOUS EDUCATION AND PERSPECTIVES
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Indigenous Education and Perspectives 2
Indigenous Education and Perspectives
An aboriginal person is the originators of a certain area and has different social,
economic and cultural patterns. In Australia, aboriginal people did not perceive
education as a key factor in propagating physical and emotional well-being. Lack of
proper education among the native people impacted negatively in their health due to the
fact that they could not go to the hospital even after some symptoms of a certain
disease. Their enrolment, retention and completion rates in schools are importantly
lower compared to their non-indigenous counterparts (Mooney, Seaton, Kaur, Marsh, &
Yeung, 2016). This lead to increased premature deaths among the native people
compared to non-indigenous who attained education.
Aboriginal Australians are more likely to have high blood pressure, higher rates
of diabetes, obesity, and smoking compared with non-aboriginal Australians. This,
together with poor access to health services and poor economic and social status
contributes to the increased rate of chronic diseases such as Chronic Kidney Disease
among indigenous Australians. Chronic kidney disease is a key health issue that
increases mortality and morbidity among aboriginal than non- aboriginal Australians
(Reilly et.al, 2016). It affects individuals and society by causing kidney failure, anemia,
and bone diseases.
Yothu Yindi an Australian indigenous person and a lead singer says he didn’t
know he had kidney problems until when it was at death stage and he was taken to
hospital unconsciously and when he woke up he found himself in the intensive care unit.
He says that despite noticing strange changes in his body he didn't consider it very
seriously. He describes these changes as itching, muscle cramps, swollen feet, not
feeling hungry, trouble sleeping, and too much urine. He attributes this to overworking
and climate change. Family and community around could not discover that he was ailing
he says. Unfortunately, he died in May 2013 after going through various cycles of
dialysis (Holwell, Sajiv, Barzi, Brady, & Hughes, 2017).
Yothu Yindi's family was highly affected by his ailment. The fact that he had to go
through numerous dialysis to save his life it made his family incur a lot of costs. This
burdened his family because had to find ways to generate funds for the same. The
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Indigenous Education and Perspectives 3
family was also burdened by the fact that they had to make up the time to visit him in
the hospital frequently.
The relationship between education and health suggest that the causal
mechanism behind the association between education and mortality is that proper
schooling adds a vital value to the intrinsic ability to improve higher-order intellectual
skills which significant for making healthy decisions. People with no educational
qualifications are more likely to die from diseases such as cardiovascular, chronic
kidney disease, cancer, and respiratory diseases. Also, life- expectancy and health
inequality between native and non-native Australians lead to deteriorating health,
increase mortality rate, shorter life expectancy and decreased levels of employment and
education.
Lack of knowledge affects the lifestyle of an individual, family and even
community at large (Ritte et.al,2017). For instance when parents precisely mother lack
the formal educational it also affects children and therefore receiving formal education
assist not only themselves but also their families, children, and communities. For
example in the case of Yothu Yindi, he suffered from chronic kidney disease for a long
period of time but never sought medical attention due to lack of knowledge about the
disease. If he had information about the disease he could have taken action in earlier
stages and this would have raised his chances of surviving.
From studies, it shows that Australian indigenous people suffer from chronic
kidney disease eight times higher than non- indigenous because it is only recognized at
the end –stage thus causing death. This is as a result of ignorance as they don’t take
health matters seriously. Also, they fail to attend appointments with nephrologist
because they assume that nothing is happening even with chronic symptoms (Maple-
Brown et.al, 2016). Yodhu yindi assumed the signs and symptoms he experienced and
failed to seek attention from clinicians.
Kidney disease affects infants because it leads to giving birth to underweight
children among native Australians. Native patients carry an increased level of co-
morbidities when they commence kidney replacements dialysis, unlike non-native
patients. This lead to reduced quality of life, compromised health status, reduced
chances for a kidney transplant and inaccurate dialysis.
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