NAPLAN results show we could do better with Indigenous students
For anyone interested in education in Australia, the release of the latest National Assessment Program, Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) results on the My School Website and the launch of the corresponding report by Schools Minister Peter Garrett last week will be met with mixed feelings.
On the one hand, the overall reading results of Indigenous primary and secondary school students have improved in the past four years. Most notably the 2011 report reveals an increase of almost 12 per cent in the number of Indigenous Year 3 students reading above the national minimum standard. However, the situation in the Northern Territory, where just 40 per cent of Year 3 kids achieved the minimum standard, is much less promising.
Despite widespread commitment to the slogan of “closing the gap” in Australian education, NAPLAN results showed a growing divide between top and bottom students, and growing disparity of outcomes for Indigenous and non-Indigenous students.
According to the report, in the Northern Territory, “the percentage of indigenous students achieving at the national minimum standard in each domain is less than half that of non-indigenous students, except in numeracy, where it is almost two-thirds”. At Year 9 level, just over 86 per cent of non-indigenous students and only 55 per cent of indigenous students were reading above the national minimum standard.
Each year since the NAPLAN was introduced in 2008, over one million year 3, 5, 7 and 9 students sit the test in order to ascertain performance in areas of literacy and numeracy and to support improvements in teaching and learning. While the NAPLAN is only one measurement of learning and progress, it is one of many indicators pointing to the urgent need to generate innovative and creative initiatives to improve quality and equity in the Australian education system.
I have been teaching for almost 4 years now in the APY Lands, and the problem of poor indigenous literacy is not just the education system (although it plays its part in the debacle). It’s the attitude of the Anangu adults here. There is no sense of urgency or belief that education benefits or is necessary for their children. No matter how good the teaching, no matter how smart the children, if the attendance of these students is below 60% (for at least half my class) than their literacy will not improve. In fact it will get worse as they progress through the school years. Until someone tackles the attendance problem seriously (and the underlying social malaise contributing to it), indigenous children today will merely become another “lost generation”. And that is what really saddens me because these children have so much potential.
Thank you for your comment and sharing your experience in APY Lands. As you say, the issues are certainly extremely complex and stem from a plethora of wider historical, social, institutional factors. There is no question that these extend far beyond the education system itself, and certainly low attendance rates pose an enormous struggle for all teachers.
The key question is, why is there a lack of belief in the benefits of education? How do we make schooling relevant and worthwhile for parents so that they ensure that their kids attend? At the HARs we believe that at school-level, strong relationships with family and the wider community are vital to making schools responsive, safe, relevant and engaging environments for Indigenous children. Investing in relationships with families, while time and labour-intensive, is central to ensuring open dialogue regarding learning and ongoing involvement. To quote Chris Sarra from the Stronger Smarter Institute, “We know for sure from examples right across the country, where school leaders go out of their way to engage with parents and children and build positive relationships, attendance improves”. You might be interested in this video by Chris Sarra, discussing attendance issues:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36iGFDkW6-s
We all share the frustrations and hopes, and wish you well in your remote community. It is such worthwhile work that you are doing so we hope you will be the one to find the illusive key to school attendance!
Great to see a conversation about teaching in remote Indigenous schools in Australia is happening between the people who can really make a difference – the teachers and school leaders in the schools themselves! I too work on the APY Lands but I’m currently on study leave trying to finish a Teacher Librarian course, as knowing about Information Literacy is a skill set often missing in small remote schools. I’ve been thinking about issues like engagement and attendance for a long time, and there’s no easy answers and it’s easy to get despondent like Swee Oon above. This is my twelfth year in remote Indigenous communities and one thing that keeps me going is the one about “change what you can and leave the rest” – that’s not how it goes but the idea being that Anangu have many and varied reasons for not getting kids to school everyday and a lot of it is out of a teacher’s sphere of influence. Building relationships as HoneyAntAdmin suggests is critical, but sometimes all a good relationship means is that families will tell you they’re going off somewhere instead of just going without notice. Chris Sarra has got it right though, and a school culture of high expectations and un-relenting hard work is showing good results at Murputja in terms of individual engagement and achievement for a number of students.
My current thinking is that teachers and leaders in these schools need to approach teaching as an action researcher – continually trying new approaches and strategies and when something works to engage students and families, keep developing it and spread the word. And let engagement be the measure of success and not just the NAPLAN test, as well as the ESL scales, and the ongoing observations, etc, etc. And most of all develop the partnerships to see what it really is that Anangu want for their kids. English Literacy and Numeracy are part of it but not the whole.
All much easier said than done, and the conversations are really important to keep a positive spin on it from knowing you’re not alone. I’m giving a blog a go for this reason: “Lyn Walsh’s Learningwire” at http://learningwires.edublogs.org/
It’s a learning process!
Thanks Lyn for your great insights and positivity! It is always exciting to exchange experiences from teachers like you and Swee Oon in APY Lands and around the country! We look forward to following your reflexive learning journey on your edu-blog and hearing more about engagement strategies, as you say, spread the word! Best of luck!