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Mansell warns against Gillard's 'one size fits all' education strategy |
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Written by National Indigenous Times
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Dec 10, 2007 at 07:10 PM |
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Mansell warns against Gillard's 'one size fits all' education strategy Issue 143 - 29 Nov 2007 
Tasmanian Aboriginal leacder, Michael Mansell INSET: New Minister for Education, Julia Gillard
NATIONAL, December 5, 2007: Tasmanian Aboriginal leader Michael Mansell has warned that a "one size fits all" approach to education could destroy Aboriginal languages and result in generations of Aboriginal people “winding up lost in the big cities chasing the dollar”.
Mr Mansell was responding to new Minister for Education, Julia Gillard's reforms outlined earlier this week which he said focussed on reading, maths and writing.
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"Emphasizing reading and writing and maths means the education system is geared wholly around employment,” Mr Mansell said.
“A holistic education system can embrace crucial social and cultural values as well as work-related curriculum.
“It need not be one or the other.
“Aboriginal people across Australia will have a genuine fear that a federal demand on reading and writing skills in English means Aboriginal communities might be broken up.
“That would shift our children to white city schools where the continuity of Aboriginal culture, especially languages, will not be taught.”
Mr Mansell said the “wholesale dumping” of Aboriginal youth in the cities has historically proved a social disaster, evidenced by the over-representation of Aboriginal people in Australian prisons.
“Five thousand of the 23,000 prisoners in Australian cells are Aboriginal even though we are only two percent of the population,” he said.
“It is an abuse of power to use government finances and legislative authority to force Aboriginal children to abandon their heritage and culture in the pursuit of skills aimed solely at being employable.
“It is racist to force Aboriginal children to adopt European values at the expense of cultural continuity.
“The answer is to make work skills-based education available to all students including Aboriginal students, but with flexibility to match social and cultural obligations with that style of education.
“Both can be achieved.
“There is no mandate for the Rudd government to destroy Aboriginal culture under the guise of better education outcomes."
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