Policy and performance: Aboriginal Education in Western Australia in the 1990s.

Beresford, Quentin

Concern about low rates of participation and achievement among Aboriginal students intensified from the late 1960s. Twenty years later this concern was formalised into the National Aboriginal Education Plan (NAEP), a commonwealth/state agreement which identified 21 goals for Aboriginal education, grouped into four main purposes: to increase Aboriginal involvement in educational decision making; to improve equality of access for Aboriginal people to educational services; to increase Aboriginal participation to the same level as all Australians; and to achieve equitable and appropriate outcomes for Aboriginal people. This policy took effect from January 1990. Although progress in achieving these goals is recognised as being very slow (Partington, 1998, p. 4), there has been little examination at the state level of the effectiveness of the policy process underpinning Aboriginal education.

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Western Australia as a case study

Western Australia provides a significant case study to examine the issues of participation and achievement among Aboriginal students. Throughout the 1990s, Western Australia had among the lowest retention level of Aboriginal students of any state and the disadvantaged position of Aboriginal youth generally was signified by incarceration rates higher than all other states (see Beresford & Omaji, 1996). Despite this poor record, Western Australia is unique among Australian states in its commitment to evaluating its achievements under NAEP. Two extensive reports have been compiled by an independent consultant (hereafter referred to as the consultant's report/s). Although these are limited to providing data on the extent of implementation of NAEP goals, and do not, therefore, constitute an independent analysis of priorities in Aboriginal education, they nonetheless provide valuable data to interpret a number of underlying policy issues.

The core finding from the 1999 consultant's report justifies the need for examination of the policy process underpinning NAEP. In short, it found too little progress was being made:

 While there are some encouraging trends suggesting that the gap [in
 progression, retention and Year 12 graduation rates] may be narrowing in
 some areas, it is still wide, and where it is closing, it appears to be
 closing only slowly. The evidence of lower retention and progression rates
 at the end of the compulsory years of schooling, around Year 10, suggest
 that significant inroads are yet to be made into the problem of attrition
 from school by young Indigenous people. (Kemmis, 1999, p. 15)

Among the revealing statistics confirming the continuing poor educational outcomes for young Aborigines, three in particular stand out. In 1997, between 9 and 39 per cent less Aboriginal students than non-Aboriginal students achieved literacy and numeracy performance criteria; only seven Aboriginal students achieved a tertiary entrance score higher than the lowest score permitting direct entry to a Western Australian university; and truancy rates for Aboriginal students showed nearly 40 per cent had more than 10 full day absences (p. 10). From these data, it is impossible not to infer the continuation of deep-seated problems in the provision of Aboriginal education in the state, although Western Australia is clearly not alone in this regard.

Developing a framework for analysis

The data contained in the two consultant's reports invite examination of the structure of policy development in Aboriginal education. According to Bridgman and Davis (1998) this structure is best understood as a policy cycle by which `policy develops through a standard sequence of tasks that can be framed as activities or questions (p. 21). The key stages identified by Bridgman and Davis include: issue/problem identification; policy analysis (solutions); identifying policy instruments; consultation; coordination; implementation and evaluation. The model assumes that policy does and should proceed in a logical and rational way which is often at odds with the political pressures on government. However it is useful in this context for identifying shortcomings in the development and implementation of existing policy. Although limitations of space prevent a detailed application of each stage of the Bridgman and Davis policy cycle model to the implementation of NAEP, it is the purpose of this article to apply key components of it to highlight some of the main weaknesses in the development of Aboriginal education policy as it unfolded in the 1990s. Such an undertaking can contribute to a better understanding of the reasons behind the continuing poor outcomes in Aboriginal education discussed earlier. The disturbing factor about these poor outcomes is that they have occurred in spite of considerable policy initiatives by the Western Australian Department of Education. Over recent years, these have included the development of an anti-racist and students at risk strategy in addition to a range of specific programs which are directed at meeting the educational disadvantage of Aboriginal children. These programs include cross-cultural training for staff, training for parents involved in school decision making, the provision of Aboriginal studies, training for Aboriginal parents to partner their children in school and funds for breakfast and homework programs.

Problem identification

Researchers have long recognised that the responses of most Aboriginal students to school and education are embedded within a context of social and racial marginalistion (Watts, 1978). More recent work in the area of education and minority youth highlights the need to understand the social experiences of these youth and the power relationships within schools to appreciate the phenomenon of pupil resistance to school (Wright, Weeks, & McGlaughlin, 2000). These complex factors highlight one of the most difficult factors for policy makers generally: how is the `problem' defined? Theorists of policy such as Steiss and Daneke (cited in Hogwood & Gunn, 1990, p. 111) sum up the potential dangers succinctly: `A plausible but incomplete definition of the problem can be more dangerous than a wrong solution'. Jamrozik and Nocella (1998, p. 31) add a further, important reminder: the tendency to define the problem through a focus on the particular population experiencing the problem rather than on the underlying causes of the problem. Of particular relevance to Aboriginal people is the finding from work carded out by Rutter and Madge (1976) which concluded that the transmission of disadvantage across generations can only be understood by consideration of `the influence of a common social environment on successive generations'.

In the light of these views, how should the `problem' in Aboriginal education be defined by authorities? Recent policy documents issued by the Western Australian Ministry of Education (1993, 1997) have acknowledged the importance of broader, social factors. A 1990 policy document (Ministry of Education, 1990) made the following acknowledgement: `connections between the poverty and educational disadvantage of Aboriginal children need to be made in a way that will assist a more appropriate provision and delivery of educational services to enhance Aboriginal student learning and progress' (p. 2). More recently, the Department acknowledged a wider set of external factors impacting on the education of children. Its 1997-2000 Aboriginal education operation plan (Department of Education, 1997) stated: `Social, cultural, environmental, economic and health factors all contribute to Aboriginal students being alienated and not achieving in the schooling process'. These factors were identified as: the lack of a supportive school environment, the transience or mobility of families, poor self-motivation, racism, harassment, peer pressure, poverty, lack of structures from home, the undervaluing of education by the community, homelessness, substance abuse, alienation from families and poor health.

Although this may be seen to be a comprehensive list of issues, there is no attempt to provide a systematic understanding of causation and hence to translate this to a policy framework. Specifically, policy documents issued by the Ministry of Education of Western Australia during the 1990s show a failure to fully come to terms with two underlying problems affecting urban Aboriginal youth and education: the intergenerational effects of past polices (that is, up until the mid 19700 and the effects that on-going structural disadvantage have had in creating a sub-cultural lifestyle among many urban Aboriginal youth.

The impact of past racial policies

Space prevents full examination of the ways in which past racial policies have impacted on the education of the current generation of Aboriginal youth. This is a large and, in many ways, neglected area of educational research and only the briefest observations can be offered. In particular, these observations relate to the ways in which policy in Aboriginal affairs in Western Australia created intergenerational marginalisation in education. This was the outcome of three distinct but interlocking policies in Aboriginal affairs: racially segregated living; forced removal of children from their families; and cultural assimilation. Sufficient is known about the broad outlines of the operation of these policies not to detail them here where the focus is on their educational impact. Briefly stated, most Aborigines lived physically separate lives from whites, especially in the settled south west of the state where an extensive system of reserves housed Aborigines in conditions equivalent to `slum ghettoes' (Schapper, 1970, p. 42) which ensured `that they cannot readily become aware of the standards and mores of Australian society' (Schapper, 1969 p. 148). Concerted opposition from local communities succeeded in excluding most Aboriginal children growing up on reserves from enrolling in state schools. By the late 1940s, the former Commissioner for Native Welfare, A.O. Neville (1947), claimed that, Australia wide, only about one-quarter of Aboriginal children were receiving any education at all, and then mostly in institutions (p. 144).

The institutions to which Neville referred were mostly church missions where children, already scarred from the process of separation from their families, endured conditions entirely unconducive to formal learning: long hours of manual work, frequent abuse and untrained staff (Beresford & Omaji, 1998). Moreover the primary object of most missions was not education but Christian evangelism (Beckenham, 1948, p. 15). Consequently most children left missions at age 16 with only rudimentary education and little vocational training. When in the 1950s the cultural assimilation of Aborigines became official policy, one of the effects was to pave the way for greater numbers of Aborigines to enter the state school system. However the attitudes of cultural superiority underpinning assimilation affected teachers' responses to Aboriginal students as observed in the 1960s by McKeich (1969): `many, if not most, teachers ... tend to play part-Aboriginal problems by "ear", develop stereotyped reasons for retardation, and, with few exceptions, eventually give up any real endeavour to help these children' (p. 23).

The near universal educational marginalisation of Western Australia's Aboriginal population was the inevitable result of the state's racially tainted policies, a fact that was well understood by the mid 1970s. In 1975, a federal parliamentary committee (House of Representatives, 1975, p. 85) indicated an appreciation of the inter-generational effects of the policies. Reviewing the impact of segregation in one south west town the committee found that few of the parents could accurately name their children's school grade and, importantly, few were able to assist in any way with their children's schooling because of their own lack of skills. Consequently `they did not expect their children to achieve much more than minimal literate and numeral efficiency'. Other studies made similar observations: The University of Western Australia Education Department (1975) undertook an inquiry into the status of Aboriginal education and concluded that Aborigines living on town reserves `have been so thoroughly alienated and isolated from the school's value system that they are well past caring' (p. 98).

Not surprisingly, given the profound nature of educational disadvantage experienced by Aborigines up until the early 1970s, the intergenerational effects noted at that time have persisted. As one Aboriginal community worker, familiar with alienated Aboriginal youth, has explained: `Their parents weren't in a position to teach them to sit at a desk and study because they did not have access to this. Therefore, the kids don't appreciate anyone who has formal knowledge and skills' (cited in Beresford & Omaji, 1996, p. 47). The consultant's report also found many Aboriginal parents and children lacked high expectations about schooling (Kemmis, 1999, p. 9).

Little official recognition has been given to the existence of intergenerational disadvantage in education. Yet, as the above evidence shows, lack of familiarity with the expectations of the education system among many Aboriginal families, and the aspirations for educational achievement that accompany such experiences, shape the educational futures of many of today's Aboriginal youth.

The impact of social marginalisation

Short-comings in problem identification in Aboriginal education are also manifest in understanding the depth of social marginalisation experienced by many of today's Aboriginal youth. Shaped by the very background conditions identified in the Education Department's Operational Plan mentioned earlier, extreme social marginalisation is experienced by large numbers of Aboriginal youth and children containing the hallmarks of a subcultural existence. Unacknowledged in the Department's policy documents, in particular, is the cumulative impact of generations of high youth unemployment. In 1994, the Aboriginal Affairs Planning Authority highlighted `a fatalistic attitude' that existed among Aboriginal youth because `their future opportunities for improving their socio-economic status is minimal' (p. 52).

Limited social opportunities are the driving force behind the subcultural existence of many urban Aboriginal youth. Beresford and Omaji (1996) explain that this lifestyle is based on `shared values that are learned, adopted and exhibited in the subculture, apart from and in opposition to the dominant value system' (p.121). While actual numbers falling into this category are difficult to determine, its construction around family groupings means considerable interaction between older and younger members, the latter often inducted into forms of anti-social behaviour including theft and drug and alcohol abuse. In turn, these forms of behaviour reflect a negative attitude born of a crisis of identity in which many feel the twin pressures of a lack of legitimate connection to their Aboriginal heritage and the impact of community racism (p. 126).

Such a common experience of a subcultural lifestyle adds another layer of complexity to the problem identification process in Aboriginal education. It is quite obviously linked to the high rates of non-attendance and school drop out. Yet there are no clear statements in the policy documents which emerged in the 1990s indicating an understanding of the actual social experiences as lived by many Aboriginal youth.

Therefore concern about Aboriginal education is an example of a policy `problem' which appeared on the decision-making agenda without having been adequately conceptualised or thought through. Although the reasoning of governments is not always transparent, the failure of education authorities to fully conceptualise problems in Aboriginal education during the 1990s probably flows from a reluctance to place issues--such as the impact of past racial polices--into a social justice and human rights context.

Policy analysis

Shortcomings in problem identification have led to obvious gaps in policy responses to Aboriginal education. The rising number of strategies and initiatives instigated under the NAEP process has, as mentioned earlier, failed to make much of an impact on educational outcomes for the group. In short, the range of approaches has been too narrowly defined in two inter-related ways: first, that `the problem' is primarily an educational one and, secondly, that the responsibility for dealing with it belongs principally with education authorities. More promising would be primary intervention strategies aimed at dealing with the underlying causes of social disadvantage among Aboriginal youth and their families. The consultant's reports highlight this need. Feedback from Aboriginal parents indicated a range of unrecognised external factors impacting on their children's education:

* Some parents do not have the financial resources to support their children staying on at school; improved Abstudy could help support student participation and retention.

* For some students, family situations are impeding improved school attendance, engagement and performance.

* Lack of attention `a holistic approach to Aboriginal children' and a lack of attention to health issues which impact on learning.

* Racism and caution in relationships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. (Kemmis, 1998, pp. 44, 76)

The issue of non-attendance was raised in many of the community consultations held as part of the evaluation process and, based on this feedback, the consultant wrote: `it should be recognised that attendance problems are especially pronounced for Aboriginal students suffering various kinds of disadvantage' (p. 86), including poverty, family problems, health disability problems and isolation.

In 1994, the Western Australian Government appointed a Task Force on Aboriginal Social Justice with the job of devising a social justice strategy for Aboriginal affairs in the state. It followed and, to some extent, complemented the extensive work undertaken by Patrick Dodson in his Underlying causes of deaths in custody which examined the range of social factors contributing to the high rates of imprisonment of Aborigines in Western Australia. The Report of the Task Force did not mince words about the failure of government policy. While stressing both the goodwill of many working in government agencies and the range of programs developed, the Task Force came to a firm conclusion:

 Any review that considers the work of government departments in the light
 of the circumstances of Aboriginal people must conclude that successive
 governments have failed to address the problems adequately, and this
 overarching failure comprises in large part the failures of specific
 agencies within government. (p. 206)

Central to the Task Force's diagnosis of government failure in Aboriginal affairs were two basic problems. First, the lack of any policy for Aboriginal Affairs:

 The lack of an Aboriginal Affairs policy has contributed significantly to
 the limited success of the whole of government planning. The development of
 such a policy would provide the framework from which the strategic planning
 agenda would derive its impetus and direction. (p. 214)

Secondly, and related to planning, were problems with funding: `There can be no certainty that funds are being directed to those Aboriginal people most in need or to issues of highest priority' (p. 136). In response to these perceived weaknesses, the Task Force developed a social justice strategy for Aboriginal affairs, the components of which lie outside the main focus of this paper. Nevertheless, the Task Force made this call in the full light of the complexities and ambiguities of the federal system in relation to Aboriginal affairs. It argued that the state should take a leading role in the delivery of basic services to Aboriginal people in areas such as health, education, housing, law enforcement, and welfare services (p. 280). Initially the Court government rejected the recommendation to develop a comprehensive social justice strategy, leaving the whole area of Aboriginal socio-economic disadvantage without a clear policy direction. However, more recently, planning is underway to develop policy direction, although results are yet to be released.

As set out in the Task Force's Report, an important component of a social justice strategy is the specific needs of Aboriginal youth. This reflects not only their lower rate of educational retention, but the higher rates of unemployment and representation in the criminal justice system. The connection between the two has long been recognised by government authorities. In 1990, the Department for Community Services wrote: `Many Aboriginal children are leaving school by 11 years of age, or truanting ... These children don't go to high school and some assist bigger kids in offending' (cited in Beresford & Omaji, 1996, p. 123). However, during the 1990s, insufficient commitment was shown by state governments to stop the drift from school and into crime. This was the finding from the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs (1994, p. 295). The Committee noted figures showing Aboriginal youth were 48 times more likely than non-Aboriginal youth to be in a juvenile detention centre and it was critical of the failure of Western Australian governments to produce evidence of positive outcomes of programs to reduce this rate. Further the Committee questioned the sincerity of governments to achieve this end.

In fact, throughout much of the 1990s, Western Australia had among the highest incarceration rates of Aboriginal juveniles in the nation and among the least developed preventative and diversionary systems. A key element in the state's law and order strategy has been the introduction of several `get tough' measures which have a disproportionate impact on Aboriginal young people. The consequences of this approach on the education of young Aborigines can be dramatic. In particular, it perpetuates a cycle of sub-cultural status for many young Aborigines in which they perceive that society offers them few legitimate opportunities for success (see Beresford & Omaji, 1996).

Implementation

Aboriginal education policy has suffered from one of the inherent problems in the implementation process: the separation between policy designers and those who provide the service to customers (Davis & Bridgman, 1998, p. 105). Characteristic of strategic development in large government departments, Aboriginal education policy has been devised in a `top down' approach with expectations that compliance will follow at the local level. However it has long been recognised that `perfect implementation' assumes that those in authority `are able to secure total and immediate compliance from others whose consent and co-operation are required for the success of the program' (Hogwood & Gunn, 1992, p. 206). Compliance with centrally determined education policy is further complicated in the education system by the policy of school-based decision making by which greater authority is given to the local school to meet educational objectives.

These difficulties are reflected in the following comment from the consultant's report: `The schools sector provided little evidence of commitment to ensuring continuous improvement in program and service delivery to support access by Indigenous students' (Kemmis, 1999, p. 5).This is not necessarily to lay blame on individual schools or teachers, but to underline that policy implementation is problematic when it assumes significant behavioural change within target groups (Howlett & Ramesh, 1995, p. 175). This is especially the case in Aboriginal education, where the expectation of behaviour change is widely spread throughout the school community: among teachers and school administrators so that they become more sensitive to the needs of Aboriginal students and more inclusive of Aboriginal communities; among non-Aboriginal students to ensure they are non-discriminatory in their relationships with Aboriginal students; among Aboriginal parents who, it is assumed, will overcome generations of distrust of `white' education and become active participants in planning their children's education; and, importandy, among Aboriginal students themselves who are expected to be responsive to efforts to provide for their needs.

Although there are no studies documenting the attitudes and behaviour of Western Australian teachers in regard to Aboriginal pupils, indications are that the need for change may be substantial. Recent British research into understanding the complex ways in which racism in schools can become institutionalised showed that `it can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amounts to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantages minority ethnic people' (MacPherson report, cited in Wright et al., 2000, p. 116). The principal of a government primary school in the Swan Education district of Perth, which has the highest proportion of Aborigines in the population of any district in the metropolitan area, gives some insight into the complexity of attitudinal change among many teachers:

 Most of our graduate teachers don't come from any background which would
 lead them to understand what it's like to be discriminated against or to
 have your way of life taken from you ... most of our teachers have a
 willing attitude to take on new concepts about dealing with Aboriginal
 children. Their greatest gripe is that the children don't attend regularly
 and this is where understanding the dysfunctional family situation that
 some of them come from is a bit difficult because they don't come from
 those sort of families. They don't really understand.... we have a homework
 centre for Aboriginal students and some teachers say `well I've got kids in
 my class who are non-Aboriginal and they need that just as much'. So there
 is a lack of understanding of the principles of equity. (Personal
 interview, Perth, April 2000)

Uncertainties about the impact of programs on behaviour change were a key feature of the consultant's reports. For example, despite considerable commitment on the part of the Department to provide cross-cultural training:

 The evidence presented does not show whether, in fact, this training has
 been successful in assisting teachers to be more effective in meeting the
 learning needs of Aboriginal children and students; nor does it show that
 Aboriginal students and their families believe that the training has helped
 teachers to be more effective. (Kemmis, 1998, p. 12)

A clear finding in the consultant's reports is the widely held perception among Aboriginal people that schools remain substantially insensitive and/or unresponsive to their input into school decision making and lack awareness of the cultural and curriculum needs of Aboriginal students (p. 2). In the crucial area of literacy and numeracy, for example, the consultant found:

 At the school level, agencies did not provide evidence to show whether or
 not they are revising literacy and numeracy programs to increase their
 effectiveness in improving education and training outcomes for Aboriginal
 students. (Kemmis, 1999, p. 16)

Clearly, significant progress needs to be made in the area of behaviour change at the school level. Current levels of commitment do not appear to have made substantial inroads into the resistance many Aboriginal students show towards school. As feedback to the consultant from Aboriginal parents showed, students feel that there is no evidence that continuing on in education makes much difference in their lives (p. 9).

In a number of areas, implementation of strategies has been hampered by a lack of resources and/or commitment by the Education Department. Racism is a case in point. Of particular concern to many Aboriginal students is the experience of racism in school which has long been recognised as an impediment to educational retention and achievement (Watts, 1978, para. 20.8). Over 40 per cent of Aboriginal high school students surveyed for the consultant's report claimed an experience of racism from other students and from staff (Kemmis, 1998, p. 13). Not only has the State Government ignored the recommendation of its own Task Force of Aboriginal Social Justice which called for community education to combat pervasive community prejudice against Aborigines, but schools were found by the consultant to be doing little in this area: schools `reported little about the counter-racist programs and initiatives they are undertaking, so the finding of this study is that there is little evidence of implementation of the intended outcome of the Strategic Plan regarding combating racism' (Kemmis, 1999, p.31).

Accessibility to Aboriginal studies is another example of the lack of institutional support to achieve strategic objectives. Twelve years after the influential Beazley Report (Commission of Inquiry, 1984) into Education in Western Australia called for its introduction, only 36 per cent of schools in the state were offering courses in this area, in spite of the recognition that this was an important means for schools to show interest in Aboriginal culture, to help Aboriginal students develop pride in their culture, and to educate non-Aboriginal students about Aboriginal culture. Only in the last two years has there been a significant lift in provision, up to 55 per cent of schools (Kemmis, 1999, p. 164). However less than 40 per cent of these schools involved Aboriginal people in the planning and teaching of Aboriginal studies (Kemmis, 1998, pp. 17, 142). Feedback to the consultant from community consultations indicated the need for more concerted action in this area:

 There was a strong view that it should be made compulsory ... that it
 should be given a higher priority and further integrated into teaching
 across the curriculum; and that local people should be involved in (and
 trained to) teach Aboriginal studies. (p. 18)

Coordination

Implementation of policy to improve participation and retention of Aboriginal students has been slow to develop across portfolio coordination to meet the needs of Aboriginal youth. Although the need for such coordination was raised in the 1995 National Review of Aboriginal Education, it was given only limited application in the 1997-1999 Aboriginal education operational plan. This document referred to the need for the Education Department to maintain effective partnerships but those nominated were limited: principals' associations; the Superintendency; the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission; Aboriginal Student Support and Awareness Program Committees; the Aboriginal Education and Training Council; and the Aboriginal community. In other words, the Education Department did not seek to formalise partnerships across the whole of government and include critically important agencies such as family and children's services; police; juvenile justice; employment and training at both central and district levels. The need for a whole-of-government approach to Aboriginal education was taken up by a Task Force on Aboriginal Education established by the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (1995), which, in calling for improved coordination, argued: `The on-going lack of effective cross-portfolio arrangements constitutes a barrier to achieving educational equity for Aboriginal students' (p. 17).

Conclusion

This survey of policy making in Aboriginal education does not purport to have been a comprehensive one; each of the many initiatives in the area deserves close examination. Nor does it infer that no worthwhile achievements have been made. Over the past decade and more, Aboriginal education has seen the commitment of considerable resources and policy effort by people desiring improvements in outcomes. Yet this constructive effort is not being met with substantial results. It could be inferred that insufficient time has been allowed for the policies to show more widespread positive effect. In other words, there is little wrong with the policy settings in place, just the time-frame required to evaluate properly. There may well be some justification to this view, given the extent of educational disadvantage in the Aboriginal community. However another interpretation--and one which has informed this analysis--suggests significant shortcomings in the policy development process. Aboriginal education as a policy cycle has only partially been thought through. Deficiencies exist in official understanding of the problem and its complexity and hence the range of responses required. At the broadest level, the poor outcomes that continue to plague Aboriginal students in school have been too narrowly defined in educational, rather than social justice, terms. Moreover many of the worthwhile programs in place have only been partially implemented, reflecting lack of adequate commitment on the part of government in identifying and tackling the barriers to implementation. The result of these deficiencies in the structure of the policy process is to leave unresolved educational inequality for another generation of Aboriginal young people.

Keywords

Aboriginal education

Aboriginal history

Aboriginal students

policy analysis

policy formation

race

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Dr Quentin Beresford is a Senior Lecturer in the School of International, Cultural and Community Studies, Edith Cowan University, Mount Lawley, Western Australia 6050.