The majority of the 27,000 Aborigines in the Northern Territory live in remote communities and on cattle stations, or are grouped around some of the smaller rural towns that are scattered through the 1,347,500 square kilometres of the Northern Territory. These extremely isolated communities may vary in size from, say, one hundred to over one thousand people. There is vast climatic and geographical variation, too, between the tropical communities around the beaches that fringe the Arafura sea, and those in the desert where the harsher climate and terrain have an appeal of their own to those who live there.

To educate 7,000 Aboriginal children, the Northern Territory endeavours to maintain 43 schools in Aboriginal communities, plus another 27 which are located on pastoral properties. Apart from two residential colleges located at Alice Springs and Darwin, which cater for secondary-age Aboriginal students, all Aboriginal schools could be regarded as remote, isolated by geographical distance from the larger centres. These 70 schools present complex logistical problems to those who supply and maintain buildings, equipment and staff. However, although formidable, the problems associated with remoteness are insignificant when compared with the social, cultural and linguistic factors that create distance between these traditionally oriented Aboriginal children and our western style of education.

In recent years full-time bridging or ‘continuing’ education programs for Aboriginal adults have been developed in technical colleges throughout Western Australia. These programs, known as TAFE Aboriginal Access Courses, have expanded rapidly and in 1981 were catering for over 200 Aboriginal students in seven technical colleges. Among the findings of a recent evaluation of these courses (Goldsworthy et al, 1981) was that a large number of students wanted an increased Aboriginal component within their courses.

While issues of specific interest to Aboriginal students permeate the entire Aboriginal Access programs, it was felt that the development of a unit of Aboriginal Studies for inclusion in the Access Courses would be the most pragmatic way of meeting this student need. A steering committee was formed to develop this unit comprising two educators of Aboriginal descent, an Aboriginal Access Curriculum Officer and a lecturer from one of the TAFE Aboriginal Access Courses.

In Eastern Australia the respective State Education Departments are encouraging the liaison of Aboriginal parents with the schools. An Aboriginal person is usually employed to facilitate this important interaction and is employed under various titles – The Aboriginal Home Visitor, Home-School Coordinator, and Community Education Counsellor. The diversity of nomenclature is maintained in Western Australia, where the Aboriginal person entrusted with this demanding task is employed as an Aboriginal Liaison Officer.

The following articles describe the duties and performance of the Aboriginal Liaison Officers from three levels. Colin Mounsey, Superintendent of Aboriginal Education in Western Australia, provides a state-level overview, relating the history and special requirements of the Aboriginal Liaison Officer. Neil MacNeill (Principal, Roebourne Primary School) and Gladys Walker (Aboriginal Liaison Officer, Roebourne) relate the operations of the Liaison Officer from a local and personal viewpoint. (C.N. MacNeill)

How can one describe him? Cheeky, shy, mischievous, intelligent. He is all of these. He also has a great sense of humour and great powers of observation and hearing. Sometimes I’ve found his sense of humour rather weird, but I’ve found it’s because he cannot express himself in words, so he laughs at things, even someone else’s misfortunes„

Since working with them I have found there is a difference between the urban child and the humpy child.

Urban children grow up in an ordinary urban situation like any other childo Their best friend could be the European kid next door and they can be welcome in each other’s homes at any time They are very much integrated and can be found with a mixed group of any nationality. Their ideas are much the same: to grow up and get a job – an apprenticeship if a boy, or a truck driver. The girls think teaching or typing would be nice. These children feel pretty secure, especially if they have parents who are either Christians or non-drinkers.

Both urban and humpy children have strong family ties and become terribly lonely if away from familiar surroundings. Little children are protected by other people even when deserted by their own mothers. I found, if I have them home to stay with me for a weekend, the children usually want to stay longer and when they return to the family they usually go up in the rest of the family’s estimation. They are very interested in all you do in the home – from cooking a meal to washing and cleaning. They want to know why you do this, that or the other, and they follow you around, watching. They like to help you do things and you can end up having quite a hilarious time in the kitchen.

Most Aboriginal communities in Australia have been provided with government schools, built, staffed and organized by government departments. As with mission schools, the motivation for schooling has largely come from outside the community itself, though often with tacit community support. Although formal ‘Western’ schooling fits uncomfortably with the values of a hunter-gatherer society, in most cases schools have adapted very little to the special environment of an Aboriginal community. Not surprisingly, both achievement and attendance are often poor. Attempts to vary programs, as in bilingual education, and to augment the staff of these schools with Aboriginal teacher aides (teaching assistants), have not altered this situation greatly, though this does not negate the worth of these initiatives.

One of the many possible reasons for this predicament is the lack of community control over what happens in its school. In many cases this is almost absolute, duplicating the lack of control over land, law, health services and many other aspects of life. For this reason, schools have been seen by some authors as one of the more direct agents of cultural change, acting to assimilate Aboriginal people into white society with a community that functions as a ‘total’ institution. The natural resistance of Aboriginal people to this process is likely to have profound implications for Aboriginal community schools.

Papunya settlement is located some 250km west of Alice Springs on the Haasts Bluff Aboriginal Reserve. Originally commenced in 1958 as an alternative for the growing numbers of people living at the old Finke River Mission ration depot of Haasts Bluff, it became the centre of the Luritja language group. These people were traditionally Mayutjara, Ngalia or Pintupi. There are some other languages spoken at Papunya but this is almost exclusively by adults who have married into the Luritja group. A large number of traditional Pintupi people who have lived at or near Papunya are now located on what are known as the Western Outstations.

When I first moved to Coffs Harbour in 1972, I quickly became aware of the problems facing Aboriginal children in the school and community. Now, ten years later, seems a good time to review the position.

Statistically there have been changes. The Aboriginal population in Coffs Harbour Shire is 1.6% of the total population, namely: males 200, females 194, total 394.

The new Tyalla Primary which opened next to Orara High in 1978 has 29 Aboriginal pupils, while the Aboriginal population of Orara High itself has increased from 10 to 31 students (2 being in Year 11) in keeping with this school’s growth from only Years 7 – 9 in 1973, to a full secondary school by 1976.

It appears that attitudes among teachers and white children have polarised. There are the ‘hawks’ and the ‘doves’. When these terms were invented during the Eisenhower years in the U.S.A., it was easy to tell a ‘hawk’ from a ‘dove’. The ‘hawks’ were those who favoured warlike measures and confrontation, while the ‘doves’ were those who wanted peace talks and mutual disarmament. These days it has become difficult to differentiate in the military aviary but in this educational issue there seems to be a marked line of division. On the one hand there are those who condemn as ‘racist’ any special programs of financial aid to assist Aboriginal children, ‘the hawks’, and on the other those who blame a white-dominated society for the problems Aboriginal children face, ‘the doves’.

Jigalong is an Aboriginal Community some 180 kilometres by road from the large mining centre of Newman in Western Australia’s Pilbara area. Originally an Apostolic Church mission, it is now an incorporated Aboriginal Community. The Community owns and operates a cattle station which is a large employer of workers from the Community. Nearby stations also employ Jigalong people as workers. The Community is made up of about 350 people who originally came from the Western Desert Region of Western Australia.

I am in my second year of teaching at Jigalong. During this time I have attempted to establish a program which suits 14 to 18 year-old boys and is designed to help these boys find work in the local pastoral industry. It is hoped that some of the ideas developed in this article will be of interest to others when they find themselves posted to a remote Aboriginal community.