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OPINION: Scrymgour outlines her position
Issue 182 - 23 Jul 2009
ISSUE 182, July 23, 2009: On June 26, Marion Scrymgour issued the following written statement in response to media articles criticising her decision over the future of bi-lingual education in the Northern Territory.
During the period that I was the Minister for Education a new policy was developed called "Transforming Indigenous Education".
In 'Word' format the relevant policy document ran to 21 pages, and featured a primary focus on improving school attendance together with 8 inter-related supplementary measures or strategies, namely:
• a strategy aimed at supporting and engaging with parents and families of school age children;
• a strategy aimed at orientation/induction for an retention of non-Indigenous staff;
• a strategy aimed at upgrading the skills of Indigenous teaching staff;
• a strategy aimed at enhancing and upgrading the ESL teaching skills of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous teaching staff;
• a strategy aimed at ensuring effective teaching of core curriculum content and increasing exposure to Standard Australian English;
• a strategy aimed at establishing regional boarding hostels for Indigenous students;
• a strategy aimed at establishing and resourcing regional Community Education Boards (with functions analogous to those successfully discharged by Aboriginal community-controlled health boards).
I had requested and intended that the full text of Transforming Indigenous Education be made publicly available, and I am surprised that that hasn't been done. The formulation and implementation of education policy is now of course a matter for the current Education Minister.
One component of the strategy aimed at ensuring effective teaching of core curriculum content and increasing exposure to Standard Aboriginal English was a policy relating both to the content and delivery of the first four hours of teaching in a school day and to the establishment of structured and funded programs for the teaching of regional Aboriginal languages.
I have already publicly acknowledged, and I do so again, that I failed to properly explain the policy I was trying to introduce and also failed to effectively consult with affected schools and their communities.
The reduction of the policy to the phrase "four hours English" did not address the mixed language complexity of teaching English in a "non-bilingual" school in a remote Aboriginal community (such as Gunbalanya).
It also failed to inform such communities of the Government's commitment to retaining Aboriginal language teaching within the school curriculum.
When I was attacked by critics of the policy as being a person who wanted to destroy Aboriginal language and culture, I tried to explain that that wasn't the policy intention at all.
However by then it was probably already too late to change the initial impression that had been created.
So I acknowledge my mistake in relation to the way I attempted to introduce the policy.
However, and contrary to comments attributed to me on ABC radio (recently), I do not at this stage regard the policy as a "mistake".
The policy was influenced not by "lobby groups" but by my concern about the effectiveness of "step method" teaching in a contemporary Northern Territory context.
I accept that "step method" teaching may be an effective strategy in other countries (especially where the first language of instruction is spoken by a large number of people and where teaching is conducted by a single teacher completely fluent in both languages), and that it may have been more effective in the Territory in the past (when some of the dedicated professionals - both Indigenous and non-Indigenous - who have given decades of their lives to maintaining Territory Aboriginal languages were actually working at the "coalface" as teachers).
The information provided to me (both in terms of the most recent testing results and in terms of anecdotal evidence) indicated to me that children's potential progress was being hindered, not helped, by not being exposed to English literacy teaching at the very beginning of their education, rather than only after a three year stagger.
I believed that from the earliest possible age, children should be spending quality time in front of a blackboard with words on it that are spelt in English.
As it happens at Gunbalanya, the teaching of those English words may in the early years be conducted substantially in a language other than English. But in a strict bilingual school using the "step method" the words on the blackboard will be in an Aboriginal language for at least the first 3 years of the child's education.
As I have already mentioned, my policy intended to retain and properly structure into the curriculum teaching hours where the word on the blackboard would be in the relevant local language.
Those would be the allocated hours for the teaching of that language in its own right. But the plan was that for the first four hours of the day, the words on the blackboard would be in English.
Now, as regards those areas of the Territory where there are critical mass populations of Aboriginal people all or most of whom speak the same language (including, but probably not restricted to, the Yolngu-speaking areas, the "Warlpiri" triangle; the Tiwi Islands; and Pitjantjatjara-speaking parts of Central Australia) I accept that there are sufficient numbers of students to justify the teaching of the "step" method if it could be done effectively.
Although I am, of course, no longer in a position to directly implement policy, I am open to being persuaded that I was wrong about my view as to the contemporary effectiveness of "step method" teaching in those critical mass areas.
However, when it comes to communities where there is a multiplicity of languages, or where the lingua franca is Kriol and not the regional Aboriginal languages which so desperately need to be protected and maintained, my view is still very firmly that for the first four hours of the day ESL teaching should be the norm, but with the curriculum also structured and funded to effectively teach original regional language literacy.
This outcome was exactly what the elders at Numbulwar told me they wanted when I consulted with them, and I made a commitment on behalf of government to initiate implementation of that by way of the establishment of a new language centre to be run in conjunction with the school.
I have heard the comments that have been made by Miliwanga Sandy, an accomplished linguist and leader whose achievements I respect.
The application of the policy I was developing to her home community of Wugularr, should have resulted in English being taught at the school for the first four hours but using Kriol as teaching vehicle, and then for the other hours of the teaching day, structured language literacy courses in Rembarrnga, Miaili, and Dalabon (and perhaps also Jawoyn, given the traditional ownership of the land on which Wugularr is situated).
I want to speak to Miliwanga about that model to see whether we can reach some common ground.
In the meantime, I do not wish to make any further comment, because my words and views about this complex and nuanced subject have already been significantly misquoted and misinterpreted (and I accept that part of the blame for that falls on me).
Marion Scrymgour MLA
Member for Arafura
• SEE ALSO: A reply in writing from Scrymgour
• SEE ALSO: NIT coverage of bi-lingual debate a disgrace: Scrymgour
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