(Transcript from World News Australia Radio)
Poor school building maintenance, and badly-planned study courses.
They're two of the reasons being put forward for poor attendance and results at schools serving remote Indigenous communities.
The New South Wales Education Minister, Adrian Piccoli, says successive Labor and Coalition governments have neglected Indigenous education in remote parts of his state.
On a visit to Walgett High, in his own electorate in western NSW, Mr Piccoli condemned what he described as the appalling conditions.
He described the school's toilets as disgusting and said he was alarmed to find a hole in the school's roof which had been left unrepaired for about a year.
Mr Piccoli says he found similar conditions in other schools serving large Indigenous communities in Wilcannia and Brewarrina.
He has told NITV's Awaken program, he believes Indigenous students in remote parts of the state are receiving second class treatment when compared with students in other areas.
"The state of those schools would never be accepted in either Sydney, Newcastle, Wollongong or in any larger regional centre. But because they are a long way away, it seems over the last decade or so that they have been left in a state that's not acceptable, particularly Walgett High. When I went there, clearly it's not in a state that anybody would think was an acceptable state for a school."
Mr Piccoli says he was not surprised to learn that Walgett High School has a poor attendance record, with only around 30 to 50 students attending school on most days out of a total school population of 100 students.
The Education Minister says he believes the poor attendance and low levels of achievement at the school are directly related to the poor physical state of the buildings.
"Even the way that the school had been constructed and then added on to - it looked not quite so much like a school and more like some place where you would put children in detention. Clearly these are complex and difficult communities and having a facility like that, where there is clearly not much to be proud about, certainly sends the wrong signal to students and certainly shouldn't be acceptable."
Mr Piccoli says he believes schools such as Walgett High are not setting high enough expectations for their students and in some cases, offering them a limited curriculum with little scope for excursions to other parts of the state.
The Nationals MP says he has established a community reference group in areas like Walgett to give the local community more say over building projects and curriculum decisions at the local level.
Dr Chris Sarra has conducted extensive research on Indigenous education and is a former Principal of Cherbourg State School in south-east Queensland which has a large Indigenous student population.
He says it is pleasing to see a state government minister express his concerns about the state of Indigenous education.
However Dr Sarra has told NITV he believes it is now time to put more effective plans in place to match the rhetoric.
"I guess the challenge for Minister Piccoli now is to convert that emotion to some sort of positive action and I think there is scope to do that. In fact I suspect that part of his anger is borne out of knowing that in some remote communities across Australia, schools are making a difference. Teachers and principals with high expectations in partnership with Aboriginal parents with high expectations of their children, are delivering change."
Born and raised in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands of remote South Australia, Aboriginal language worker Karina Lester spends her working days travelling across schools in remote communities in South Australia, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
Ms Lester believes the key to improving Indigenous education lies in encouraging all levels of government to work in partnership to make the school curriculum more relevant to the direct needs of students in remote communities.
She believes the current school curriculum is generally out of step with many Indigenous students because it tends to be developed by bureaucrats in far away capital cities who have little understanding of the day to day needs of remote communities.
Ms Lester says a fundamental shift is needed so that more curriculum decisions are made at the local community level with input from elders.
"Having the grounding that you can get from your community and from the key people within your community, of your traditional knowledge and your traditional culture is grounding in that it tells you who you are and you have an identity as a young Anangu person growing up in a remote community on the APY Lands. So a child needs to know where his or her place is in that family unit and within that community environment."
Ms Lester says a key part of fostering cultural identity in remote communities lies in encouraging the teaching of local Indigenous languages in schools.
She also believes the school curriculum needs to better reflect the strong connection Indigenous Australians have to their homelands.
Ms Lester says one way of doing that would be for Indigenous students to be encouraged to pursue career paths which help them make a long term contribution to their communities.
"Simple things like land management practices, if they are very interested in doing that sort of stuff, we should support that child to be able to go through and be able to gain some sort of qualification in land management practices or looking at (national) park management for that matter and developing career pathways for these kids because that skill then brings them back to the community to look after the natural resources of that community or the land management practice that is needed for that particular community."
Dr Sam Osborne is a former Principal of Ernabella Anangu School in the APY Lands and is currently a Senior Research Fellow in Indigenous Education at the University of South Australia.
He believes one important way of raising the standard of Indigenous education lies in encouraging more Aboriginal students to pursue careers in teaching.
Dr Osborne says Indigenous students need strong role models and mentors who have the cultural understanding needed to help them achieve their best.
And he believes universities and education departments need to make a conscious effort to encourage more Indigenous and non Indigenous teachers and principals to work in remote communities because it can be a rewarding experience.
"If school leaders see their work in a remote community as a hardship post where you simply need to batten down the hatches to survive, you tend to see schools that don't look very loved and it looks like students don't want to be there. That does happen. It's not across the board though because there are many vibrant and dynamic schools with a lot of innovative things happening."
