Federal Politics

Indigenous literacy gap must close

Last year, my family and I left our home in the suburbs and moved for 11 months to Broome. This came about thanks to my husband's long-service leave serendipitously coinciding with his midlife crisis, and our two children being at a good age to make the move: young enough not to be upset about leaving behind friends and sporting groups; old enough to hopefully benefit from the experience of living somewhere quite different to what they were used to, and to remember it afterwards.

And different it was. Both our kids were enrolled at Broome Primary School, where just over half the students are Aboriginal. After their first day my daughter Cameron reported to me, wide-eyed, "Mummy, most of my class don't wear shoes", while our son Declan casually informed us that the footy teams at lunchtime were decided on skin colour: black kids down one end, white at the other.

Three weeks later, over dinner, he made another observation. "Our reading groups are a bit like the footy," he said. "The black kids go on one side of the room, the whites on the other." The reading groups, I learnt, were streamed by ability. In Declan's grade five class the lower two groups were comprised solely of Aboriginal students, some reading three or more years below the expected level for their age. This division was replicated in Cameron's grade three class, and almost uniformly across maths and spelling groups as well.

The problem, a past teacher from the school informed me, isn't aptitude but attitude. Formal learning carries little status for a proportion of the Aboriginal population, and some families fail to enforce or even encourage their children's attendance at school.

After coming over to play with Declan one Sunday, an Aboriginal classmate mentioned that he wouldn't be at school the next day because he didn't feel like it. True to his word, the boy was absent, and I suddenly understood the attendance awards handed out each week at school assembly, something I had thought was a bit of a joke when I arrived.

Then, too, some Aboriginal children swap between schools when their families decide to visit relatives or attend gatherings elsewhere in the state. In her first term, three children left Cameron's class, while four new ones arrived; a Melbourne teacher on an exchange program at the Lombadina Aboriginal community, two hours north of Broome, told me with a sigh that during her first four months in the job she added more than 15 pupils to her roll, and removed almost as many again.


In many remote indigenous communities English is a second language, which further discourages students from attending largely English-taught schools; in others poor nutrition or the hearing (otitis media) and visual (trachoma) impairments rife among Aboriginal children present additional impediments to learning.

Also, indigenous homes have been found to have significantly fewer books, computers and other educational resources than non-indigenous homes.

The combination of these factors - cultural, medical and socio-economic - results in the kinds of divisions encountered in my children's classes: whites on one side, blacks on the other.

Put bluntly, indigenous literacy levels are a disgrace. A 2002 report found only 15 per cent of indigenous students achieved required reading and comprehension levels, compared with about 90 per cent of the broader population.This enormous literacy gap emerges early and is rarely overcome: by 15, more than one-third of indigenous students do not have the skills for real-life challenges such as filling out a job application.

Tomorrow, Indigenous Literacy Day aims to raise funds to buy books and other resources for indigenous communities. Participating booksellers (including online) and publishers will give at least 5 per cent of all takings tomorrow to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation.

When we left Broome my children decided, without prompting, to leave most of their books behind - to give them to their school, the local library and to friends. They are the lucky ones, the ones that know there will always be more books in their lives. "Good books open worlds," notes award-winning author Shaun Tan, "but inspiration can't exist without an opportunity, and that's something we can all help to provide."

Kylie Ladd is a novelist and psychologist. Donations can be made at indigenousliteracyfoundation.org.au/Donate/ or by phoning 9319 2883.

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