The education system is failing Indigenous children: Minister – Central Education

Deputy Premier Ben Carroll appeared before the Yoorrook State Justice Commission on Friday as it continues to investigate injustices against Indigenous Victorians.

In his opening statement to the commission, Carroll acknowledged that “unintentional or intentional” government policies and practices have created gaps between First Nations and other Victorians.

Carroll said that since colonization, schools have played a significant role in reinforcing racist perceptions and stereotypes about First Peoples and in perpetuating false narratives about colonial history.

“While quality education has been described as an equalizer, the state’s history is replete with examples of schools being used as tools of segregation, exclusion and oppression of First Peoples,” he said.

The commission found that public misconceptions about Aboriginal people and their children not wanting to learn continue to result in them being left out of school.

A lawyer assisting Tony McAvoy said several witnesses told the committee that they or their parents were “denied access to achieving results above very low grades in primary school”.

“This denial of education continues to impact Victorian First Peoples,” he said.

The minister noted that the percentage of indigenous children attending kindergarten is 100%.

He also agreed that when these students reached the third grade, they began to drop out of school, before the disparities widened again when they reached the ninth grade.

He said racism had led to lowered expectations for Indigenous students’ educational aspirations and opportunities.

McAvoy said First Nations children thrived when they were at home with their parents and had access to Aboriginal community-run preschools and kindergartens.

“But once they reach school age and enter a system that is not specifically designed for them, their academic achievement declines,” he said.

Despite the government’s efforts at self-determination, Commissioner Travis Lovett said Indigenous culture is still not reflected in the curriculum and 1,529 of 1,566 public schools do not teach an Indigenous language.

“They come to school and after the smoking ceremony and welcome to the country, they return to a social life where they do not learn the customs of our people,” he said.

Lovett said a lack of cultural education could lead to negative beliefs about indigenous people, before revealing how his daughter was told at school she was “only a little Aboriginal”.

“We keep telling her that she is a Gunditjmara and we should not be ashamed, regardless of the color and shade of our skin, whether our people are very dark or not, it does not matter,” he said.

In 2023, the education department received 69 complaints of racism from Indigenous parents, carers or students, an increase from 34 in 2020 and 19 in 2016.

The committee was told that last term, around 30 per cent of Indigenous students in Victorian schools said they had experienced racism.

Aboriginal staff working in the school system reported regular and ongoing incidents of racism against themselves, Aboriginal students and colleagues, Commissioner Maggie Walter said.

“None of them had confidence that the system would support them or that if it accepted their complaint, anything would happen,” she said.

Carroll acknowledged the problem and promised an independent survey of Aboriginal staff working in the system to discover how deep-rooted the problem is and reveal how schools can be made safer.

AAP