FACTS

Taken from the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in Canberra, 2002.

The Indigenous population comprises 2.4% of the total Australian population, a total of over 20 million people. Therefore the estimated Indigenous population is 458, 500.

A significant number (69%) of the Indigenous population live outside the major urban centres. In 2001, around one in four Indigenous people lived in remote areas compared with only one in fifty non-Indigenous people.

For many Indigenous people, participation in education is affected by economic disadvantage, social marginalisation, health problems and/or geographical isolation. A lack of formal education has implications for future employment prospects and hence economic independence.

Interestingly enough, a survey of unemployed Indigenous people revealed that 26 % attributed insufficient education, training or skills as the main difficulty in finding and securing employment. Only 2 % believe it was a case of racial discrimination.

Indigenous people, especially parents, are increasingly aware of the importance of a good education to secure a wide variety of employment prospects. They want the best for their children, all parents do, and it begins with education.

For one in ten aboriginal children, Year 12 is the highest level of educational attainment. 3 in 100 aboriginal people complete a university degree. Regardless of the comparisons between Indigenous and non-Indigenous educational qualifications, what do these figures mean for Indigenous Australians and their future?

This means we are not training enough Indigenous teachers, we have a shortage of Indigenous health workers, we have very few Indigenous leaders and role models in corporate business, we urgently need more Indigenous lawyers and we have no where near enough Indigenous people in government and politics to create the changes that are needed in this country for the betterment of all Australians

A lack of formal education is the main reason for this situation. Unless we all actively work to improve the educational opportunities for Indigenous students, this situation will be exactly the same in another one hundred years.