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Education Reform in the Cape
Text Box: Text Box: A number of secondees have contributed to Every Child is Special initiative. A research and development unit (within Cape York Partnerships) aimed at reforming Indigenous education by building student, family and community demand for high expectation, high quality education through family engagement and mutual accountability. The unit has a "No Excuses!" approach to achieving better education supply and demand and develops collaborative education partnerships to improve education supply and enable participation in education. The starting point of the research and development work was to gain an understanding of the fundamental strategic challenges facing Indigenous education as seen from the point of view of a remote community. This resulted in the articulation of the following five steps, which continue to underpin their thinking about education reform: 1. Build demand for education through family and community engagement 2. Put the building blocks of literacy and numeracy in place by the time children start walking and talking 3. Close the gap between Year 7 in Cape York and Year 8 in the rest of Australia 4. Scholarships to high quality, high expectation secondary schools across Australia 5. Education, employment, sporting and artistic orbits to the wider world and back home Recently there have been a number of negative media articles around this initiative. Kerie Hull from CYP advised, “most of the information already reported is incorrect, especially the information about how angry the parents are, the issues with American content in the programs and the teaching of the American national anthem (simply not true!). Around change there will always be some detractors and misinformation and both Education Queensland and our Communications teams are currently working to address this.”

"After more than 30 years of both national and international teaching experience in indigenous communities, Direct Instruction is by far the best method of teaching the 3Rs that I have seen. It is particularly so in a case where children have fallen behind national expectations which is, without exception, the case at Aurukun. To us at the front line of indigenous education, it is a light in the darkness..”

Geoffrey Higham, Head of Aurukun Campus

"After 30 years of experience as a Principal in Cape York and the Torres Strait I have absolute conviction that this approach will dramatically improve the literacy and numeracy outcomes in these communities. I would not have committed to this initiative otherwise.”

 

 

Don Anderson, Executive Principal,

Western Cape College

 

 

Don Anderson, Executive Principal, Western Cape College

"In my experience with the new teaching program, I am very much enjoying it and I have had comments from my students saying how much they enjoy the program as well. The program is very well structured, students can easily follow the program, they know exactly what is expected of them and are experiencing success. As a teacher I know exactly what level the students are at and how they are progressing. I haven't come across any American  specific content in the program other than a few minor spelling changes. I  have simply taught the students the Australian way of spelling."   

 

Maureen Liddy, Teacher and Principal of Coen Area Lama Lama Language Group Cape York


Geoffrey Higham, Head of Aurukun Campus

Jawun email: alumni@iep.net.au