Strategies to Improve Aboriginal Students' Educational Outcomes

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of the educational challenges faced by Aboriginal students in Australia, emphasizing the historical context of forced assimilation and the lasting impact of the Stolen Generations. It identifies key issues, including unequal treatment in schools and poor health conditions, and explores the associated challenges such as limited resources, inadequate teacher training, and disparities in life expectancy. The essay examines specific strategies to address these issues, including child protection interventions, culturally responsive teaching methods, and community engagement. It highlights the need for a national vision that decolonizes educational targets and promotes culturally sensitive approaches to improve educational outcomes and overall well-being for Aboriginal students. The essay concludes by emphasizing the crucial role of teachers, community members, and a supportive environment in fostering positive learning experiences and addressing the prevalent issues.

Aboriginal students
education
1

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Main Body:......................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
REFERNCE.....................................................................................................................................8
2

Introduction
Indigenous children in Australia have forced separation ant they are suffering from negative
School experiences and Poor health conditions. These are among the two major conditions
suffered by students. In the year 1910 and 1970 is work racist and Italy to forcing Aboriginal
people to assimilate with the white Australian (Trauma of Australia’s Indigenous ‘Stolen Generations’ is still
affecting children today, 2019 ). In the year 2008, Australian government apologized to search stolen
generation there has been a serious impact on people and specially students who are going to
school because of such government actions.
Main Body:
There are basically two major issues that are related with people suffering because of such
migration that is being suffered by students in school (Gallop and Bastien, 2016). Such as first
are children those are part of such stolen generation families have reported that they are being
treated unfairly in school because of relation with indigenous.
Apart from this 26% of the total indigenous children's that the stolen generations have created
that they are suffering from Poor health 19.2 percent of the whole population. Start children
who belong to stolen generation household are also 1.8 Times press in the your and are 60% that
is owned by a household member (Freeman and Staley, 2018). It can be said that these are the
two major issues that are basically suffered by such aboriginal generation of Australia.
Issues associated with issue of Unequal or unfair treatment of Aboriginal children:
1. There are situations of les time provide by teachers to such aboriginal students as compared
to other Australian children that leads to feeling of inequality.
2. Overall federal funding for aboriginal children is very low as compared to other school
children.
3. Mostly instructions for aboriginal students are provided by Volunteers ad not by the
professionally trained teachers that again leads to creation of a feeling of dissatisfaction
among such students as they are treated differently.
Above discussed are some important challenges and issues related to unequal treatment that
are being faced by all the Aboriginal students and it leads to creation of high dissatisfaction
3

Among these students and at same time their mental health also gets impacted in a very
serious manner. All this leads to not able to concentrate properly on their studies and the
overall class room teaching is not at all effective for such aboriginal students.
4

Major issues associated with issue of Poor health of Aboriginal children:
1. There is a gap of approximately 17 years between the aboriginal students and other
Australians of life expectation. For all the age groups that are below 65 years the age
specific death rates are twice of those non indigenous groups.
2. The aboriginal students are not able to access to some basic amenities such as safe
drinking water, rubbish collection services, healthy housing and effective sewerage
systems.
3. Death rates because of certain cardiovascular disease has not reduced for aboriginal
population as it has significantly decreased by 30 percent since the year 1991 for rest of
Australians by 5 percent in last 16 years but has not reduced for aboriginal population.
Above discussed are some of the common health issues that are faced by children
in Aboriginal population and its affects their way of acquiring some benefits from
education as they are not able to focus on their classroom teaching because of such
serious health issues.
Formation of strategies:
There is requirement to form certain strategies in order to deal with these racist policies and there
are some of the root causes of such issues that have been identified. Such insurance policies
government that have actually resulted in forced removal of children are basically the major
cause of such Australians dying about 10 years early as compared to other Australians.
There are also many studies that result that effect of the overall childhood trauma is because of
the substance misuse and overall issues of health related to physical and mental is leading to
Limited employment opportunities (Perryand Holt, 2018).
Strategies to deal with the issue of Poor health By Aboriginal children:
1. Some of the strategies that can be used for protecting such an original children includes
adoption of authority intervene if child has been address or is being harmed. Child
Protection intervention basically is initiative that has been started by notification which
is to development of an authorised apartment working towards protection of children
5

taking care of any issues related with child negligence and child abuse (Building
relationships with local communities, 2018 ).
2. It consists of a report that is made related to Child Protection authority and further
follow process of Investigation is developed in order to child and there is a legal order
that is passed authorising a child protection to supervise the placement of a child with
their family and develop an alternative care setting for the protection of child.
3. Another strategy that can be used for the purpose of minimization of negative impact on
student increasing the way of teaching and effectiveness to deal with all the issues that
are faced by their there are certain engagement strategies that can be used by for the
purpose of increasing the effectiveness as there must be a cultural environment that is
safe, there must be a paced learning that is focused on individual growth and
development, teacher must able to understand the out-of-school lives of students and it
must be treated as a place of relevance and belonging for all the students (Effective teaching
methods that work for Indigenous students: latest research, 2019,).
Strategies to deal with issues of Inequality by Aboriginal students:
1. In order to deal with the issue of in quality of education and overall lifestyle, that is faced
by most of the students there must be opportunities that should be provided to
aboriginal students to raise their voices and have a say in everything as compared to
other student. There must be increase in the efficacy and confidence of students that can
be developed with the help of active learning students related to the local culture, impact
of colonization and overall history (Stone, Walter,. and Peacock, 2017).
2. It can be said that there should be a complete shift from the behaviour management to the
overall subject knowledge must be improvement in the overall practices and allocation
of resources and time in a effective manner so that there can be a continuous and ongoing
engagement of aboriginal communities and parents along with their students.
3. Another practice that can be used as a strategy is knowing the community or
understanding the different aspects of the community. Many research studies have
conducted it is as a very important consideration in specially the remote schools and
extremely remote areas.It is suggested that there are several issues that have to be dealt
6

and it is actually a big challenge for teachers understand community in a very crucial
manner (Child protection and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, 2020).
There is requirement for a national vision. In this there has to be decolonize the overall
Parochial targets. There has to be a vision obsession with the measurement that is
restraining the indigenous teachers in working together towards a holistic approach of
improvement of overall conditions of such up or aboriginal student.
4. There must be focus on culturally responsive approaches aboriginal and their overall
families. For making them feel that they are treated equally there is requirement to take
care of certain issues related with the cultural interface. There is requirement to focus on
building up of relationship with the local aboriginal and islander communities that is a
best approach for school children (Holmes, 2018). There has to be proper
acknowledgement of the diversity understanding the history that significant impact on
such up original people and their children. Along with a there must be proper listening to
what such communities are willing to say so that there can be a positive relationship
between such communities and school. There must be following of all the community
protocols and recognise the authority related to such cultural knowledge that test with
local aboriginal Islander communities.
7

Conclusion
From the above discussed it can be said that there are some common issues that are faced by
all the original children and there is requirement of some specific strategies that need to be
formed in order to deal with these issues. Major role played by in solving such issues involved
teachers and all the community oriented people who can actually create positivity and a proper
environment of learning for school going children so that they can focus on their studies and
proper growth and are not much affected by the prevailing issues.
8

REFERNCE
Books and Journal
Gallop, C.J. and Bastien, N., 2016. Supporting Success: Aboriginal Students in Higher
Education. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 46(2), pp.206-224.
Freeman, L.A. and Staley, B., 2018. The positioning of Aboriginal students and their languages
within Australia’s education system: A human rights perspective. International journal of
speech-language pathology, 20(1), pp.174-181.
Holmes, C.C., 2018. Introduction of Montessori Education to a remote Indigenous Early
Childhood program: A study of the ways in which Aboriginal students respond. Journal
of Montessori Research, 4(2), pp.33-60.
Stone, A., Walter, M. and Peacock, H., 2017. Educational outcomes for aboriginal school
students in Tasmania: Is the achievement gap closing?. Australian and International
Journal of Rural Education, 27(3), p.90.
Perry, L. and Holt, L., 2018. Searching for the Songlines of Aboriginal education and culture
within Australian higher education. The Australian Educational Researcher, 45(3),
pp.343-361.
Trauma of Australia’s Indigenous ‘Stolen Generations’ is still affecting children today, 2019, . [online] Available
through: < https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01948-3>
Child protection and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.2020. [online] Available
through: <https://aiatsis.gov.au/research/finding-your-family/before-you-start/stolen-
generations>
Building relationships with local communities, 2018. [online] Available through: <
https://www.qcaa.qld.edu.au/about/k-12-policies/aboriginal-torres-strait-islander-perspectives/
protocols/building-relationships-local-communities>
Effective teaching methods that work for Indigenous students: latest research, 2019, . [online] Available through: <
https://www.aare.edu.au/blog/?p=3941>
9

10