Cultural and Educational Issues Faced by Indigenous Students in Australia

Teaching Case Study
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Introduction
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander are those individuals considered as the first inhabitants of
Australia. The term "indigenous" is used by the government for both Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander. Aboriginal people is a communal name for the original inhabitants of Australia.
The primary objective of the essay is to identify the cultural as well as educational issues faced
by indigenous people in Australia. There is around 17,528 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
lived in Australia. Moreover, the paper aims to evaluate several strategies to enhance education
as well as the wellbeing of indigenous students. It will provide justification for the strategies
through various evidence based theory or practice.
Cultural and educational issues
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander are the first inhabitants of Australia who are affected by
different cultural as well as educational issues in the school. Their education and wellbeing are
mostly influenced by problems. Education issues that impact the education of indigenous
students in the remote high school are low attendance, unsatisfactory outcomes and negative
attitude from non-indigenous teachers (Donovan, 2015). Cultural issues that impact the
wellbeing of these students are bullying behavior non-indigenous peers like racist jokes and no
response of aboriginal parents towards communication from school (Commision, 2016). It is
analyzed from the case study that attendance of the indigenous students in the remote high
school is below in comparison to the non-indigenous peers. As a consequence, the school failed
to perform well in NAPLAN tests and falls below in the comparative data. The results of those
students also consistently low due to less attendance. It is always noticed that some of the non-
indigenous teachers develop a negative attitude towards the behavior and capabilities of these
students.
Moreover, the non-aboriginal students show bullying behavior towards the indigenous students
through racist jokes and derogatory remark. The parents of indigenous students give no reaction
to the communication from school that intends to discuss the expected levels of attendance of the
students, disciplinary measures and poor behavior. The school has recognized all the issues and
formed a committee to enhance the education and wellbeing of indigenous scholars (Dang,

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Vitartas, Ambrose & Millar, 2016). The identified educational issues impact their education, and
as a result, they remain uneducated and could not perform well in any place. The learning
outcomes of the students is below than that of the non-indigenous peers, which requires to be
improved by the school.
Strategies to overcome the problems
To improve education and the wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in the
remote school, a variety of useful and realistic strategies are proposed that provided below:
Create a positive learning environment – There is a substantial gap between the educational
accomplishment of aboriginal and non-aboriginal students in Australia. Several factors affect the
learning of aboriginal students in school such as racism, poor relationship with teachers and poor
self-perception. It is a beneficial strategy to create a positive education environment for
indigenous students. A positive learning atmosphere can be developed by strong school
leadership, the participation of the community in the planning of school activities, a positive
school culture and build a strong relationship between teachers and indigenous students
(Ockenden, 2014).
Develop communication skills – Communication is crucial for overcoming the issues faced by
the indigenous students in school. While communicating with the aboriginal students, it is
essential to think about the language used such as written, verbal and non-verbal. The school
required to employ aboriginal teachers who can speak aboriginal English so that they could
communicate easily with the students. The teachers should be very sensitive to the use of verbal
communication cues.
Identify the cultural requirements – It is analyzed that the indigenous students can escape
direct eye interaction to the teachers because it is recognized as rude in the indigenous culture.
Hence, identifying the cultural needs of native scholars is a significant strategy to overcome the
issues. The aboriginal students are usually hesitate to answer the questions in the classroom as
their culture passed on through the telling of stories (Mooney, Seaton, Kaur, Marsh & Yeung,
2016). Therefore, it is necessary for the teachers to use story telling with visual aids to support