In the mid nineteenth century the author Charles Dickens was so appalled by the living conditions of the poor of England that he became a tireless campaigner for the improvement in living conditions, and especially the health and education of the children. There were many other people who joined the fight for the improvement of the working class children but Dickens had the added advantage that he had a ready audience for his writings in which he highlighted the many injustices he saw. Indeed he himself was sent off to work in a blacking factory as a child so he had first hand experience.
Would it surprise you to learn that over one hundred and fifty years later we have an identical situation playing out in our own country?
A few months ago I was listening to an interview with a woman who was asked by Rotary to tutor 2 Aboriginal teenagers who came from an isolated Aboriginal community. They traveled to the city to live with the woman who under took a 3 month course of intensive tutoring. On arrival they were graded at year one or two. After ten days they had progressed two years. By the time they left they were able to converse in English and to use public transport and read signs. Now it is not as if these teenagers had not gone to school. They had regularly attended a local school. The problem was that there were no teachers a the school, and the assistants had insufficient education themselves to actually teach the children. Once every few weeks a teacher would fly in to take a class or two but that was by and large infective.
When the interviewee was asked how many children she thought were in this situation I was astounded when she replied that in her estimation there were of the order of 20,000. This is the number of Aboriginal children who were unable to gain an education because there were no facilities available to them.
The other situation that reminded me of the plight of Aboriginal children was that of the caste system in India. Again I was listening to an interview on the radio and the interviewee was saying that the caste system was not an impenetrable impediment but it was an often unsurmountable barrier to education.
It appears to me that there is only one reason that this situation exists. We have allowed it to exist. I was rather pleased that one of the outcomes from the 20/20 summit was the proposal for a national Aboriginal education scheme. However, I am yet to be convinced that the outdated principle of federalism will not once again allow the differing levels of government to blame each other and be the pathetic excuse for doing nothing to the detriment of us all.
If the Aboriginal problem is to be addressed then it is absolutely necessary to raise the overall educational standard of the Aboriginal children. This will not be addressed by throwing money at the problem willy nilly, not by the federal/state blame fest which we have too often seen. It has to be a nationally coordinated scheme with the will and means to provide a universal education that is available to every other person in Australia, but denied to these people by neglect and disinterest on our part. This is going to cost in budgetary terms but the return will be inestimable.