The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner has slammed education policy in remote Northern Territory communities, which she says is failing children.
In a speech on Friday at the Garma Festival, June Oscar, the first Aboriginal woman appointed to the role at the Australian Human Rights Commission, said it's unacceptable that Territory school attendance and achievement levels fall well below national standards.
Ms Oscar, who took up the role with the national human rights monitoring body in April, demanded that western curriculums be enriched with indigenous culture.
She also stressed that many students will be stunted for life if early years learning efforts were not intensified further.
"We cannot afford to be absorbed into the white population... in a world where 'success,' as defined by doing well in the mainstream, is fast becoming the norm," she said.
"Efforts to improve the educational outcomes of our young people can't be at the expense of who we are."
Ms Oscar said a constitutionally-enshrined voice to parliament can address indigenous "powerlessness" that manifests itself in youth justice scandals, and urged both sides of politics to back an indigenous advisory body.
She said such structural change may prevent the next generation from enduring the "brutality, injustice (and) intolerance" that indigenous children face today.
Ms Oscar cited last week's nationwide protests following the acquittal of a man who ran over Aboriginal boy Elijah Doughty in Western Australia and the tear-gassing of former Northern Territory juvenile inmate Dylan Voller.
"Our kids know the odds that they are up against. They know the stories of young Elijah from Kalgoorlie and Dylan Voller," Ms Oscar says.
"We feel the same immense pain and loss of what happens to our people each time they die in custody, are locked up for unpaid fines, and each time that the justice served up by our system seems so grossly inadequate.
"The ground has shifted, and our politicians must shift too."
