Introduction

Approximately 2,800 Aboriginal people live on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands in the far north-west corner of South Australia. These Anangu, the name they use to describe themselves, live in various communities and homelands across the AP Lands which extends from the Stuart Highway to the Western Australian border and about 150 km south from the Northern Territory border. Figure 1 indicates the approximate distances between communities. The number of people living in any community at any one time varies quite significantly because most Anangu are highly mobile.  

Six of the larger communities (Indulkana, Mimili, Fregon, Ernabella, Amata and Pipalyatjara) and one smaller community (Kenmore Park) have their own schools. In addition, three smaller communities are serviced by a centrally sited school (Murputja) and another small community (Watarru) has a school site managed by the Principal of Pipalyatjara. Figure 1 indicates where these nine school sites are situated in relation to each other.  

Each of the 6 larger schools has a Principal, an Anangu Coordinator, a coordinator or 3 key teachers, several teachers (depending on the number of students on the roll), a number of Anangu Education Workers (AEWs) who assist in the classrooms, a non-Anangu School Services Officer (SSO) and an Anangu SSO. All of these schools have the potential to provide education from CPC (Child Parent Centre) to Year 12. However, Indulkana is the only school that currently has Anangu Year 12 students. The rest provide education for Anangu Students from CPC to Years 10 or 11. Murputja and Kenmore Park have a teaching Principal, an Anangu Coordinator and one other non-Anangu teacher who, with the support of AEWs, provide education for students from CPC to Year 7. Watarru also has two teachers, one of whom is a coordinator and, again with the assistance of an Anangu Coordinator and AEWs, provides for students from CPC to Year 7.  

As in the majority of schools across the state, on the Lands students are generally promoted from one year level to another on the basis of age and the number of years they have attended school. However:

1. Many families are highly mobile both on and off the Lands.
2. Consequently a large number of students experience broken schooling as they do not necessarily attend school when living in another community.
3. Right from a young age most children are left to decide for themselves whether or not they want to attend school.
4. Most students have the majority of their formal education in English, a foreign language.

This means that by the time students reach secondary school age the range of formal educational skills and abilities among any group of students can be greater than that among similar aged students in mainstream schools. The one teacher for each group of junior secondary students may be required to teach seven of the eight areas of curriculum (a language other than English is not taught) to students in years 8, 9 and 10. Therefore, each secondary teacher faces a variety of educational challenges. To understand how cooperation helps these secondary teachers and their students one must first examine the formal structures that exist to support schooling on the Lands.  

AP, PYEC, the Minister and Anangu Education Services

Anangu Pitjantjatjara (AP) is the organization that controls everything on the AP Lands. The Pitjantjatjara / Yankunytjatjara Education Committee (PYEC) operates under the AP umbrella to control preschool and school education on the Lands. PYEC has contracted the Minister of Education to provide these services. Anangu Education Services (AES) is a centrally based administrative support unit within the South Australian Department of Education, Training and Employment (DETE) to give PYEC access to broad based educational, management, training and development and political structures.  

Anangu Education Services (AES) encompasses:

1. an Adelaide office which has management, administrative and curriculum development functions;
2. an Ernabella office which supports management and administration of schools more directly and provides more face-to-face curriculum support to school staff;
3. 8 Anangu schools on the AP Lands;
4. the Wiltja mainstream secondary project based at Woodville High School in Adelaide; and
5. the Wiltja Accommodation based at Northfield in Adelaide.

The role of the various non-school staff based in either Adelaide or Ernabella in supporting secondary education on the Lands will become apparent later.  

The leadership responsibility for AES rests with the Superintendent (based in Adelaide) who works closely with the Coordinating Principal (based in Ernabella) and school Principals. The Superintendent and Coordinating Principal work alongside the Director of PYEC (based in Ernabella) while Anangu Coordinators and Principals jointly manage schools.  

There are other educational institutions on the Lands that also work closely with the schools.

Other educational institutions on the Lands

TAFE services, mainly in the area of general education, which are provided by Spencer Institute of TAFE at the moment, are unevenly distributed across the Lands. For example, there are two TAFE lecturers at Amata but only one each at Ernabella and Indulkana. Pipalyatjara has a TAFE lecturer paid for 15 hours per week who works out of one of the school buildings and the rest of the communities have no TAFE staff or facilities. The Chief Executive has promised PYEC that if the schools on the Lands become self managing schools under the Partnerships 21 program then AP (which may mean, in day-to-day practice, PYEC) will gain control of TAFE. Dissatisfaction with the current provision of TAFE services has made this a real incentive for school communities to join.  

AnTEP (formerly the Anangu Teacher Education Program but now the Anangu Tertiary Education Program) provides educational training for all AEWs who wish to participate in this. Run under the auspices of the Underdale Campus of the University of South Australia, AnTEP has full-time lecturers at Ernabella and Fregon who provide full-time study options for Anangu who wish to train to be teachers or just to improve their general education. In the other communities part-time study for AEWs is supported by teachers in the local schools. AnTEP also provides special one-week workshops to help focus this study.  

Recent history of secondary education on the Lands

In the mid-1980s PYEC decided that they wanted Anangu secondary aged students to be able to access a full junior secondary education on the Lands, but one that was culturally appropriate. To this end, the Open Access College employed a range of teachers to write courses for Years 8 and 9 in all curriculum areas. These materials were finally completed in 1997. Although the curriculum materials are written such that they can be worked through step-by-step by individual students, it has been found that almost all students need to be taken through them by their teacher. However, these junior secondary materials are an excellent curriculum resource for secondary teachers new to the Lands because they model how teachers can integrate a focus on literacy across the curriculum and provide basic curriculum information for teachers as well as students. The latter is particularly important as most secondary teachers usually have an academic background in only one or two areas of the curriculum.  

It was also recognised by PYEC that some students, particularly if they wanted to go on to further education or they did not have access to secondary education at their home schools (Murputja, Kenmore Park and Watarru), would need to be assisted to access mainstream education. This is where the Wiltja mainstream project and Wiltja Accommodation come in. Although the Wiltja program offers places to Anangu students from Western Australia and the Northern Territory because it was established as a result of a tri-state research project, approximately half the students do in fact come from Lands schools in South Australia. Students in the latter part of Year 7 are offered the opportunity to spend from 4-10 weeks participating in a short-term program. Short-term students are provided with many opportunities to learn about living in Adelaide and all that entails as well as learning about mainstream secondary schooling in the city. During their time in the short-term program staff at the school and the hostel evaluate the readiness of students to participate in longer-term programs, either a bridging course or immersion in the mainstream with support from Wiltja staff. Hostel accommodation limits the number of students who can participate in these programs. At present there is a waiting list of girls who have proven themselves ready to access this opportunity and a few places for extra boys because, in common with Aboriginal students elsewhere, Anangu boys tend to leave school at a much younger age than their female counterparts.  

However, the mainstream secondary program (Wiltja) cannot cater for all the secondary aged students. Firstly, there simply is not the room. Also, some students cannot bear to be away from home for a whole term as they miss their family far too much. Sometimes it is the parents who miss their children, even if it is for more pragmatic reasons such as being able to look after the younger ones. Then there are those students who may cope well at Woodville High School but not at the hostel and students for whom the opposite is the case. For whatever reason, Wiltja is not an appropriate schooling option for all secondary students on the Lands.  

When Wiltja began some communities saw this as the only viable secondary option for their children. Whether this attitude came from parents or from the schools is not clear. However, in the communities where this was seen to be the case, the programs being offered to secondary aged students at their local schools bore little resemblance to mainstream secondary programs. This meant that those students who had been to Wiltja felt that there was nothing more their local school could offer them and they left school for good even if they were still under the age of compulsion if they could not cope at Wiltja. This was still the case in 1996 when I came to work on the Lands, more than ten years after PYEC had said they wanted a 'proper' secondary education for their students and after the introduction of the AES Junior Secondary curriculum materials. At that time only Indulkana was offering a secondary program for their students.  

Current secondary education options for Anangu Students

Things have changed a lot since 1996. Secondary or Middle School trained teachers have replaced most of the largely Primary or Junior Primary trained teachers who had often been given responsibility for the education of the secondary aged students. Using the AES junior secondary materials and/or mainstream curriculum materials that have been adapted by the use of ESL (English as a second language) methodologies and the addition of local cultural content, teachers have started to provide a 'proper' secondary curriculum for secondary aged students in their local schools.  

This has meant that Wiltja is no longer the only option for students wanting to access secondary education. Students who cannot cope with being away from home for any length of time can access secondary schooling at their local schools if they attend one of the six larger schools. Also, students who have a later opportunity to go to Wiltja are better prepared for the transition to mainstream schooling. In addition, students who are required to leave Wiltja for any reason do have a viable secondary education program to return to so there is no longer any valid reason for them to suddenly leave school.  

The ongoing provision of these secondary education options for Anangu students, and the future development of them, depends on cooperation between all AES staff directly involved in or supporting secondary education on the Lands.  

How cooperation solves some of the educational problems posed by distance and isolation

The following analysis of the cooperative effort that is currently occurring to enable secondary aged Anangu students access secondary education is not meant to imply that all the problems have been solved. There is still a long way to go but at least we have made a start. In fact, the progress that has been made has created even more problems because several schools have students staying at school beyond the age of compulsion into their senior secondary years. This has required even further cooperation and the involvement of an off-Lands education provider, the Open Access College based in Adelaide and Port Augusta.  

As mentioned previously, each Anangu School with a secondary class has at least one teacher for that class. The main day-to-day support for that teacher and the students in the class comes from the principal. As for the rest of the teaching staff at each school, the principal oversees the programming done by the teacher(s) of the secondary class and is the main point of contact for the teacher when it comes to the organization of relief time, the class budget and the provision of facilities such as the basic tables and chairs and larger items such as computers. However, very few principals on the Lands have much experience with secondary education. Nor are they necessarily experts in ESL methodologies, resource based learning, organising the school library or computer networks, particularly when it comes to how these can best be used in the secondary classroom.  

For this reason there are several specialist support staff based in Ernabella. There is an Assistant Principal Secondary (myself), an ESL Coordinator, a Library / Resource Based Learning Coordinator and an IT support person. The work of these staff and the across Lands Bursar and the two School Services Officers in the Ernabella office is supervised by the Coordinating Principal. The ESL Coordinator and the Library / Resource Based Learning Coordinator work with teachers at all levels of schooling but may also provide advice to principals.  

I work mainly in those schools with secondary classes but can also provide support to the sites where there are no secondary classes when students return from Wiltja for a time or there is seen to be the need to extend older primary students. The support I provide varies according to needs. For example, I spend time quite a lot of time in the secondary classrooms working alongside the teachers. As a result of this kind of interaction I have a good basis on which to discuss professional issues with the teachers, particularly those related to curriculum, classroom management and teaching methodologies. Sometimes a principal will ask me to help a teacher with a particular issue. At other times the teacher will ask me to discuss certain issues that affect the secondary students with the principal. Sometimes I meet with both together. I also provide advice to Principals on facilities when it comes to the requirements of the secondary curriculum.  

Because the ESL Coordinator (Helga), the Library / Resource Based Learning Coordinator (Joy) and I share an office space at Ernabella, it is easy for us to discuss with each other how curriculum issues at various schools might best be addressed. For example, if I have been working with a secondary teacher on his or her programming and have a good idea of what resources might be helpful I can pass on this information directly to the Joy so she can assist in finding these resources. As she works in all schools she knows what other schools on the Lands have in their Resource Centres and she can also access materials from the Alice Springs Education Centre. Alternatively, if I have been working in the classroom with a secondary teacher and find that the teacher needs help in assisting some students to read, something secondary teachers usually have few skills in, I will pass this information on to Helga so that she can follow this up on her next visit to the school. Similarly, Helga and Joy share information with me or ask me to follow up on certain issues.  

All three of us are preparing to support the two schools that are part of the intensive state-wide trial of the SACSA (SA Curriculum Standards and Accountability) frameworks that will replace the National Statements and Profiles in directing the school curriculum. AES staff in Adelaide have already had significant input into the SACSA frameworks in an effort to ensure that they are appropriate for our schools. This trial will help clarify their suitability and ensure that the voices of our non-mainstream schools are heard in curriculum developments across the state.  

Additional support for secondary education is provided from the Adelaide office of AES. The Secondary / Distance Education Officer (Judith) works closely with me. For example, we are looking at addressing the issue of the lack of specialist curriculum expertise at various sites by having teachers at one school delivering this curriculum to students in other schools on the Lands. At the moment, Judith is teaching me to use Netmeeting and providing me with feedback on my delivery in the distance mode. In the process I am teaching her some chemistry. I will then trial this next term with students from the three schools that are currently on our wider area network (WAN). The teachers involved with this at their end will then learn how to use Netmeeting and the skills required to deliver curriculum in the distance mode so that they can then trial a particular module later in the year in their area of expertise.  

This year the local delivery trials will using the junior secondary curriculum but we can foresee that in the near future this will become a necessity for senior secondary. At the moment, almost all senior secondary curriculum is provided by the Open Access College. However, this is a very costly exercise from at least two perspectives. Firstly, AES has to pay the Open Access College for providing the curriculum. Secondly, because all the students are a studying in a foreign language, English, the school based secondary teachers who are officially only tutors, have to actually teach the work between the weekly phone lessons the students have with their Open Access College teacher.  

The costs could be absorbed more easily when only students at Indulkana were accessing this for a few students but now that there are more senior secondary students at Indulkana and there are also a few senior secondary students at Ernabella, Amata and Pipalyatjara the costs are becoming prohibitive. Across the Lands, the secondary teachers would be able to cover almost every curriculum area between them. The challenge is how to use this expertise most effectively for the benefit of all secondary students! Hence the local delivery trials.  

Because she is based in Adelaide, Judith can do the face-to-face liaison with the Open Access College. She has worked closely with them in setting up Netmeeting for the Lands schools that are currently on the WAN, ensuring that it is compatible with what the open Access College use themselves. Hopefully, by the middle of the year, all the other schools with secondary classes will also come onto the WAN on the Lands when the optic fibre cable that has now been laid is finally connected. David, our IT support person based in Ernabella has been instrumental in setting up local area networks in each school, advising on the purchase of IT hardware, inservicing staff, installing software, setting up the WAN, ensuring its compatibility with the new WAN being set up by DETE and generally problem solving for the schools.  

Judith, who also happens to be a visual arts expert is writing a new visual arts course for years 8-10 that will be produced on CD Rom as this is proving more cost effective than producing print materials. Judith is also supporting another teacher who has been seconded to write a new junior secondary English course for years 8-10 which will also be produced on CD Rom. These new courses are necessary because some of the earlier materials were written before the advent of the National Statements and Profiles and do not demand enough of the secondary students as they were targeted too low. This is a constant problem we face: how to provide a curriculum to challenge Anangu secondary students in the same way that mainstream curriculum does other students while still addressing the issues of the limited literacy and numeracy skills of most of the students. These new courses, along with new courses that will gradually be written over the next few years, will be aligned to the new SACSA (SA Curriculum Standards and Accountability) frameworks.  

In 1999 a two day Secondary Forum was run on the Lands to examine secondary education issues that needed attention. One of the points that Anangu members of that forum made very strongly was that there should be a vocational education focus for all secondary students. This issue is being addressed by the appointment of a Vocational Education Project Officer based in Adelaide. This teacher liaises with community organizations and accesses vocational education resources and programs that could be relevant for our students. As a result of work already done by this teacher students in various schools across the Lands have undertaken and are continuing to undertake VET (Vocational Education and Training) courses as part of their regular study at school. Some of the courses that have been run include: seed collecting and plant propagation, gardening, basic motor maintenance, art and craft, and woodwork (run by TAFE staff) and radio broadcasting (run by 5UV). All of these are appropriate in relation to opportunities on the Lands. Unfortunately, because of the limited nature of TAFE staffing across the Lands, not all sites can access all courses and the costs to various schools are different.  

One of the projects I am coordinating across several sites is our participation in the Junior Secondary Numeracy Project. Last year two teachers, one at Ernabella and one at Amata, participated in the action research project. The focus of the two sets of research was explicitly teaching mathematical concepts in other curriculum areas where they were highly relevant to reinforce and contextualise these numeracy tasks. I assisted them in the planning and documentation of their research and the sharing of their findings with all the secondary teachers on the Lands. One other teacher who had not felt able to participate officially did so on her own. This year I am facilitating the collection of the data from all three teachers so that resource packages can be put together to assist all secondary teachers to teach numeracy in all areas of the curriculum.  

Each term I organise a secondary teachers meeting in Ernabella when teachers share the issues that face them in their schools with each other. This is important because most secondary teachers are the only secondary or middle school trained teacher in their school and they do not have anyone to share things with on a day-to-day basis. You can only do so much on the phone and over the e-mail. The audience and support is so much greater and more personal when they all get together. Also, it is possible for other support staff to work with the teachers as a group. For example, Helga, Joy, Judith, the Vocational Education Project Officer and the English Curriculum Writer have attended these meetings and shared with the secondary teachers. In addition the Project Officer for the Junior Secondary Numeracy Project, the Aboriginal support staff from SSABSA (the Senior Secondary Assessment Board of SA) and the AES Curriculum and Induction Manager have attended these meetings when appropriate.  

The future

Although there are still problems such as attendance and the provision of appropriate facilities for a full secondary education to be addressed, the structures and personnel that are currently in place to support secondary education on the Lands are proving successful. More secondary aged students are staying longer at school. The numbers we are talking about are still small but they are a start. Those who do stay are receiving a more challenging education that will provide them with the skills that they need to function well in their own communities and/or outside them if they wish. That is the purpose of teaching Anangu secondary students the secrets of the 'whitefella' world; they will then be in a position to make real choices instead of having them made for them by default.