The proliferation of Aboriginal Studies, as a formal component of teacher education programs, has been variously met with praise and criticism by educators. The financial, educative and ethical aspects of this proliferation have caused such bodies as the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS) to look closely at the outcomes of such courses. The variability of stated objectives, coupled with a reluctance by individual institutions to evaluate their own courses, has prevented any overall evaluation from a cognitive stance. Implicit in each course, however, are affective aims (sometimes wishes) that students will become more tolerant, sympathetic or positive in their attitudes towards Aborigines and, that those attitudes will be maintained and conveyed to the pupils they teach. Whether or not these are actual outcomes of Aboriginal Studies courses is a question that was chosen for exploration by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, in a three-year project located at Armidale College of Advanced Education.

As the study is essentially a longitudinal one, the focus of this paper is on the attitudes towards Aborigines of 100 primary children aged from six to nine years. Where it is relevant, the relationship between the teachers’ and pupils’ attitudes is discussed but in general, only the methodology of testing teacher attitudes is reported, as it is too early to say whether or not there is a causal relationship and whether or not it can be demonstrated. However, it is already apparent that the use, misuse or neglect of affective strategies in an Aboriginal Studies course affects both teachers’ and pupils’ attitudes towards Aborigines. This factor similarly affects the teacher’s predisposition, and competency, to teach about Aborigines in the classroom.

This is the twenty-third year in which a special day for Aboriginal Australians has been organised. Pastor Doug Nichols (now Sir Douglas Nichols) held the first Aboriginal Sunday at his small chapel in Fitzroy, Melbourne in 1957. His original intention was to publicise and aim for recognition of the prior-ownership by Aborigines of Australia.

Aboriginal Sunday has now become National Aborigines Week (July 9–15), with Friday, July 13, designated National Aborigines Day this year.

A National Aborigines Day Observance Committee (NADOC) from Melbourne co-ordinates events, ranging from a Ball at the Lakeside International Hotel, Canberra, to displays by local schools around this year’s theme, What About Our Kids?

This article looks at changes in the educational area, and asks the question, “Where to now?”

We departed from Sydney on Sunday, 22nd April, at 9.05 a.m. The trip was via Adelaide, where we arrived at 10.55 a.m. It was a fine day but very cold. We had to wait more than two hours for our connecting flight to Darwin, stopping over at Alice Springs.

The children were all so excited; for some, it was their first trip by plane and it was one, I’m sure, they will all remember. We arrived, finally, in Darwin at 5.15 p.m. E.S. Time. We almost passed out from the heat; it was 36°C.

Mr Silvey and John Killen met us at the airport. They brought some of the students from Kormilda College with them. We arrived at Kormilda College with enough time to be shown our quarters then we had to rush to dinner.

The college occupies a large section of ground. They have two huge complexes which house the students, an administration block, school buildings, a theatrette, a large library, donated by Rolf Harris, a canteen, and a very large modern dining room which is situated in the centre. There is a modern clinic with a full-time nursing sister. The matron of the college has residence there also. There is a large stock-room, a laundry, and for recreation the college has a huge sporting complex. This consists of two football ovals, a swimming pool, two tennis courts, basketball courts and a couple of volley-ball courts. At the northern end of the grounds there is a large portion set aside for gardening implements. Kormilda College has a driving-school also, and the students can actually get their drivers’ licences from the college.

Mr Robert Bellear, of Sydney, who is the subject of our cover picture, is the third Australian Aboriginal to become a fully qualified, university-educated barrister and, appropriately, was admitted to the New South Wales Bar on National Aborigines Day, July 13th, this year.

Mr Bellear holds the degree of B. Juris. LLB. of the University of New South Wales, where he studied for five years. Earlier he had studied at Sydney Technical College to complete a matriculation certificate, qualifying him to undertake university studies.

His wife, whom he married in 1966, is the former Miss Kay Williams, a Victorian. Mr and Mrs Bellear adopted three black children and fostered another three – two black teenagers and one white child – during his seven-year period of study.

Mr Bellear was born at Murrumburrah, New South Wales, on June 27th, 1944, the second eldest in a family of nine children. When he was half-way through the fifth year of high school studies, he joined the Royal Australian Navy. During nine years of service in the Navy, he became a trade-fitter and turner, boiler-maker and deep-sea diver. He left the Navy in 1968, because of his attitude towards Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War.

Mr Bellear has been active in the Aboriginal movement for the past ten years and has held executive positions in organizations like the Aboriginal legal and medical services. He started a $3 million Aboriginal housing company in Redfern, an inner Sydney suburb with a large Aboriginal population, which now houses 60 Aboriginal families. He and his wife started the Aboriginal Children’s Service.

May O’Brien wanted to become a teacher while she was still a small girl. There is nothing unusual in that. Other girls also want to be teachers when they grow up – but few have ever faced the problems and difficulties of May O’Brien. She would have given up long ago in the face of white prejudice and hostility, if it had not been for her unrelenting determination to reach her goal as a teacher.

It is easy now for Aborigines to become teachers. They get plenty of help and encouragement. But it wasn’t like that when May was born at Laverton in the 1930’s. At that time, she claims, white people used to say that the Aborigines in the Eastern Gold-fields were “the worst in Australia” – and they were treated as such by whites.

She left that hostile atmosphere when she was sent with other Aboriginal children to the Mount Margaret Mission.

There were no qualified teachers at Mount Margaret but the mission staff realised the importance of education and did what they could for the Aboriginal children. It opened up a new world for May.

The staff received Correspondence School lessons for their own children. They copied these for the Aboriginal children, but because there were too many children for full-time lessons they were split into two groups, one being taught in the morning and the other in the afternoon. Each group thus got two hours schooling a day. It wasn’t much, but the grounding in basic subjects was good, particularly in English.

In the 1973 parliamentary session, the Australian Federal Government introduced a

Following that announcement, a committee was formed to investigate the possibilities of bilingual education and to direct the setting up of some initial programs. Five schools originally changed to a bilingual education program, and the number has grown to almost twenty. The original schools have now been in operation for five years, and there is a call for their evaluation. The government has expended large sums of money on the development of the programs, but there is still discussion concerning their possible future. Some of the key issues concerning bilingual education in the Northern Territory have not been resolved, and much of the development of programs was taken over by people of initiative in individual schools. This may or may not have been a good thing, but for the purposes of evaluation, we are presented with a very complex and freely structured situation. A just and constructive evaluation of all that has happened thus far will be difficult but invaluable for the government, the administrators, and the teachers.

Some Aboriginal children come to school with skills that are different from those obtained by most middle-class children. This means that they are disadvantaged for several years in the present education system. Many of these children have little experience of reading, writing, standard English, both written and spoken, and the use of books. Since the school is based on this form of learning, their ability to achieve is severely handicapped.

Many Aboriginal families use different linguistic styles and approaches and this means the children must learn a new area of language before they can begin school learning. The Aboriginal Consultative Group to the Schools Commission, 1975, has said:

To this end, there needs to be some work done in the area of school preparation even if it is mainly communication with the parents and an opportunity for the parents to gain a wider knowledge of the school system. Hopefully, this may lead to greater confidence in the parents’ own ability to cope with the system and an attempt by the parents to prepare their own children without destroying their Aboriginality.

A mobile education unit was commissioned in 1976 as a completely new concept in the education and advancement programme for Aborigines in South Australia. Previous attempts of institutionalised educational programmes had proved generally unsuccessful as adult Aborigines living in their own lands had not responded well to conventional approaches.

The Department of Further Education accepted the need to preserve and develop Aboriginal society and to provide effective training within that society. As a result, opportunities were offered to adult Aborigines in the north west of the state to acquire domestic and mechanical skills in locations of their own choosing and in a way appropriate and in harmony with, traditional life styles.

The twelve years from 1966 to 1978 were very exciting ones for early childhood education in the Caribbean. During this period early childhood education was acknowledged as the foundation upon which to build the fundamental principle of “equality of quality educational opportunities for all” – a principle which each island government supports and is prepared to accept as an obligation and make real for its children - rich and poor.

An Aboriginal Oral History Conference was held at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies on June 16, 17 and 18.

Aborigines and non-Aborigines active in recording and documenting oral history discussed the importance of carrying out this work. In some cases there is special urgency to record the histories of older people while they are still alive. It was also noted that history and its study are ongoing processes and that the opinions and memories of young Aborigines today are important to Aboriginal history and identity. The conference also discussed the importance of Aboriginal history to general Australian social history.

The social relevance of oral history in Aboriginal land claims, for the cultural education of Aboriginal children and in rectifying the ethnocentric slant of Australian history was discussed.

Mr Michael Mace, the Chairman of the Aboriginal and Islander Advisory Committee to the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies said: