ISFIRE 14 Feb 2013 Education Systems Melodie Bat

Red dirt thinking on education systems: from remote to local

Melodie Bat (presented by John Guenther)

Ninti One Objectives

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• Address social and economic disadvantage of people in remote regions of Australia

• Find solutions to economic exclusion

• Increase economic participation of peoples

• Improve understanding of Australia’s remote regions

• Increase the skills and capacity of people

• Enhance and protect the natural environment

• Understand the impact of climate change on environment and people

Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic

Participation Goals: 1. To develop new ways to build resilience and strengthen regional

communities and economies across remote Australia.

2. To build new enterprises and strengthen existing industries that, provide jobs, livelihoods and incomes in remote areas.

3. To improve the education and training pathways in remote areas so that people have better opportunities to participate in the range of economies that exist.

Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation projects

• Regional economies • Population Mobility and Labour Markets • Enduring Community Value from Mining • Climate Change Adaptation and Energy Futures

• Enterprise development • Aboriginal Cultural Enterprise • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Economies • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Tourism Product • Carbon Economies in Remote Australia • Plant Business • Precision Pastoral Management Tools

• Investing in people • Pathways to Employment • Interplay Between Health, Wellbeing, Education and Employment • Remote Education Systems

http://crc-rep.com/research

Remote Education Systems sites

‘Remote’ is all about where you stand: red dirt thinking

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What is an education system?

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A national education system

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Before school

•Early childhood education and care

•0-5 years

Primary school

•5-12 years •Transition/Prep to Year 6*

Secondary school

•12-18 years •Year 7-12

Tertiary • VET • Higher

Education

Australia’s education systems: The Government schools system

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Orange = policy and funding Blue = reporting and accounting

Federal bureaucracy

Federal government

State/Territory Government

State/Territory Bureaucracy

Schools Community Parents

The decentralised Government schools system

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Federal government

Federal bureaucracy

State/Territory Government

State/Territory Bureaucracy

Independent Public school

Parents

Australia’s education systems: The Catholic schools system

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Federal government

State/Territory Government

CEC

Catholic Education Offices

Schools

Diocese

Parents

State/Territory Bureaucracy

Federal bureaucracy

Community

Australia’s education systems: The Independent schools system

Parents Schools

State/Territory Government

Federal government

Federal bureaucracy

State/Territory Bureaucracy

Independent Authority

Community

The Independent schools system: small community schools

Parents

Schools

State/Territory Government

Federal government

Federal bureaucracy

State/Territory Bureaucracy

Community

Which system is the most successful?

• All • Or… • None • For very remote Australia

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The ‘remote’ education system

• Solutions to these issues still prove evasive, so new paradigms may be needed to help address them.(Thomson et al., 2011, p. 299)

• Shift from ‘remote’ to ‘local’ • Think about people not money

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Thinking about innovation

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Leadbeater, C. and Wong, A. 2010. Learning from extremes, Cisco, San Jose. Retrieved April 2012 from http://www.cisco.com/web/about/citizenship/socio-economic/docs/LearningfromExtremes_WhitePaper.pdf.

Thinking about innovation

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Hannon, V., Patton, A. and Temperley, J. 2011. Developing an Innovation Ecosystem for Education. White Paper, December 2011, Cisco. Retrieved August 2012 from http://gelpspace.org/sites/default/files/related_documents/developing_an_innovation_ecosystem_for_education_cisco-iu.pdf.

Or…. Shift away from categorisation modelling to sense-making modelling

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Complex adaptive systems: The Cynefin Framework as a sense making model: next steps

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cognitive-edge.com

Community of practice

• The domain: schooling and education • The community: families, children, teachers, members of other

organisations, community leaders, education advisers and managers etc. • The practice: the shared experience of learning • (E Wenger, 2009)

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Image source: http://orgnet.com/emergent.html

Local design: one example

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Ngurra-kurlu: A way of working with Warlpiri people

• Wanta Jampijinpa Pawu-Kurlpurlurnu (Steven Jampijinpa Patrick)

• Miles Holmes • (Lance) Alan Box

• Pawu-Kurlpurlurnu WJ, Holmes M and Box L. 2008. Ngurra-kurlu: A way

of working with Warlpiri people, DKCRC • Report 41. Desert Knowledge CRC, Alice Springs. • http://www.desertknowledgecrc.com.au/resource/DKCRC-Report-41-

Ngurra-kurlu.pdfy

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Warlpiri country

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(Pawu-Kurlpurlurnu WJ, Holmes M and Box L. 2008. Ngurra-kurlu: A way of working with Warlpiri people, DKCRC, Report 41. Desert Knowledge CRC, Alice Springs, http://www.desertknowledgecrc.com.au/resource/DKCRC-Report-41-Ngurra-kurlu.pdfy, p. 1)

Ngurra-kurlu is a representation of the five key elements of Warlpiri culture: Land (also called Country), Law, Language, Ceremony, and Skin (also called Kinship). It is a concept that highlights the primary relationships between these elements, while also creating an awareness of their deeper complexities. Understanding ngurra-kurlu has many benefits for Warlpiri and also for those who work with them. It can be thought of as: • a template for the whole of Warlpiri culture • an efficient pedagogy (way of teaching) • a process for building identity and self esteem • a way of looking after the health of people and the health of country • a framework to create successful projects that are relevant to Warlpiri

people. (Pawu-Kurlpurlurnu WJ, Holmes M and Box L. 2008. Ngurra-kurlu: A way of working with Warlpiri people, DKCRC, Report 41. Desert Knowledge CRC, Alice Springs, http://www.desertknowledgecrc.com.au/resource/DKCRC-Report-41-Ngurra-kurlu.pdfy, p. 1)

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Ngurra-kurlu: A way of working with Warlpiri people

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Walya the Land

Kuwarri the Law

Juju/manyuwana Ceremony/dance

Jaru Language

Warlalja-yapa Family

(Pawu-Kurlpurlurnu WJ, Holmes M and Box L. 2008. Ngurra-kurlu: A way of working with Warlpiri people, DKCRC, Report 41. Desert Knowledge CRC, Alice Springs, http://www.desertknowledgecrc.com.au/resource/DKCRC-Report-41-Ngurra-kurlu.pdfy, pp 3-4)

What would a Local Education System look like?

• Building the new paradigm from the ground up • Red Dirt Thinking • Don’t establish it and then evaluate it • Rather, map it and watch it evolve

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Contact

Melodie Bat melodie.bat@cdu.edu.au 0427 226 561

John Guenther john.guenther@flinders.edu.au 0412 125 661 Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation http://www.crc-rep.com

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