Indigenous-Education-Review_DRAFT

Review of Indigenous Education in the Northern Territory
Bruce Wilson
Chapter Six: Early childhood
The education system has opportunities to directly shape educational outcomes almost as
soon as children are born. The learning experiences of young children, including oral
language, early literacy orientation and familiarity with the routines and practices of
learning, help give them access to schooling.
The starting point for the review is the understanding that Indigenous children born in
remote communities often come from a very different context from other children. The way
families work and the cultural practices associated with child rearing can be very different
from those of western cultures. This, coupled with the fact that English is often the second
or third language spoken, can create a dissonance between home life and early childhood
education. Much of what the Department is dealing with is a function of this dissonance,
early disadvantage with a long‐term provenance, and a range of other factors that
significantly affect the delivery of early childhood programs in the Northern Territory:
health issues that affect short and long‐term physical, social and neurological
development in some children;
social issues that impact on the ability of families to support children in early learning;
difficulties in providing services to a widely dispersed population;
non‐English speaking backgrounds and lack of early literacy engagement;
approaches to pre‐school that need to be modified in some cases to provide the best
start for Indigenous children;
difficulties in providing an adequate supply of trained early childhood workers; and
lack of consistency throughout early childhood programs in approaches to parent
engagement with learning.
Learning Lessons
Learning Lessons found that many schools were lacking the techniques and resources to
assist them in working with very young children in the attainment of reading and writing
skills. The engagement of families in early literacy acquisition was considered essential, and
at the time of Learning Lessons a number of trial programs were running in very remote
DRAFT
communities, involving parent participation in the schooling experience (Collins, 1999: 97).
The policy at the time of Learning Lessons made the provision of early childhood and preschool
experiences difficult for remote schools. Obstacles included inability to staff
according to the formulae, lack of early childhood education skills or experience among the
teachers and a lack of appropriate infrastructure in many of the schools.
Learning Lessons called for guaranteed access to play centres and preschools for all children
in the three to five year age group, with multipurpose centres to include child health and
child care services providing
‘literacy and numeracy understandings…that will assist the transition into the artificial
and disciplined world of the classroom’ (Ibid.: 99).
By 2005 the Australian and Northern Territory Governments were funding initiatives to
increase access to early years programs throughout the Northern Territory. The Learning
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