Indigenous-Education-Review_DRAFT

Review of Indigenous Education in the Northern Territory
Bruce Wilson
Lessons Implementation Status Report described the mobile preschools initiative and a
rollout of childcare facilities and community initiatives to provide health promotion, care
and early learning (LLISC, 2005).
Measures of early childhood disadvantage
There is compelling evidence that the level of disadvantage in the early childhood
Indigenous population in the Northern Territory remains high. The Australian Early
Development Index (AEDI) is a population measure of how children are developing in
communities across Australia, collecting data on most five‐year‐old children in Australia. The
data make clear that Indigenous children in the Northern Territory are disproportionately at
risk on parameters directly related to their learning. The Index measures how children have
developed across five domains: Physical health and wellbeing, Social competence, Emotional
maturity, Language and cognitive skills, and Communication skills and general knowledge.
The AEDI identifies those children who are developmentally vulnerable in each domain,
meaning that their score is in the lowest 10% of scores nationally. It aggregates these results
to identify the proportion of children who are developmentally vulnerable on at least one
domain, and in two or more domains. The Index enables a comparison of the development
of Northern Territory children with those of the Australian population as a whole and a
comparison of results over time within the Territory. Recently it has provided 2012 data
comparable with equivalent data collected in 2009, although some reservations were
expressed about the quality of 2009 data suggesting that trend comparisons might not be
reliable.
The data indicate that a notably higher proportion of children in the Northern Territory are
at risk than the national population. 10 In 2012, just over 59% of Northern Territory
Indigenous children were developmentally vulnerable on one or more domains (22% across
Australia, 43.2% nationally for Indigenous children). This means that these children are likely
to experience some difficulty in making the transition into formal schooling.
DRAFT
Just over 38% of Northern Territory Indigenous children were developmentally vulnerable
on two or more domains (11.8% across Australia. 9.6% of non‐Indigenous children in the
Northern Territory, 26% of Indigenous children nationally). This means that these children
are highly likely to need some kind of special support to keep up with their Year 1
classmates.
As Table 2 indicates, there is a strong apparent relationship between remoteness and
vulnerability in two or more domains among Indigenous children. At first glance this might
be taken to indicate that remoteness is a key factor for vulnerability. The figures for non‐
Indigenous children, however, contradict this view. If remoteness in itself were a significant
factor, it ought to affect all children. The fact that it does not affect non‐Indigenous children
suggests that remoteness is a proxy for, or associated with, other forms of disadvantage that
are the more direct causes of vulnerability. While remoteness undoubtedly impacts on the
capacity of the education system to deliver services, it does not seem to be a primary cause
of the forms of vulnerability measured by the AEDI.
10 Unless otherwise stated, data are drawn from Department of Education and Children’s Services, 2013A and
2013B.
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