Indigenous Dimensions in Australian Higher EducationAssoc. Professor Eleanor Bourke and Alwin Chong AbstractThis paper is about the way Aboriginal perspectives and indigenous perspectives has been incorporated into educational rhetoric. The 1990s has seen challenges to government strategic endeavours in Aboriginal affairs generally In the education sector Aboriginal education appears without focus now that all universities as an equity measure are required to have programs in place for Aboriginal people. Policies of self-determination have been emphasised and written about since the 1970s and 1980s? In education such policies have been expressed in terms of Aboriginalisation, through employment and of the curriculum. How much progress has been made towards achieving these expressions of self-determination? What then are the priorities for the 1990s? The terms Indigenous dimensions and Aboriginal perspectives were formally put on the higher education agenda by the then Minister for Employment, Education and Training, the Hon. Simon Crean, in 1995. In opening the Indigenous Higher Education Conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Minister Crean, speaking to his Aboriginal Higher education budget package, said The first and most fundamental - yet most challenging - of these objectives is to define and develop the Indigenous Australian dimensions of higher education in this country. Not just teaching and research about Indigenous Australia, but also harnessing Indigenous perspectives and understanding across the spectrum of higher education. These terms have been widely used by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Yet no framework or guidelines have been developed. Clearly, there can be no definition which will satisfy but this paper is an attempt to put forward some ideas about how Indigenous dimensions might be projected in higher education. It is intended to generate further discussion and find meanings, interpretations and distinctions to guide the debate. |
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