History of the AECOver forty years ago the general community was at last becoming concerned about the rights of the Aboriginal people of this nation. From this concern it was recognised that as governments were not addressing the problems then it was necessary for the establishment of groups who would.The delivery of educational services to Aboriginal students had occurred in the main, in segregated schools many attached to Aboriginal reserves where the curriculum emphasis was based on the expectation that Aboriginal girls would serve as domestics and Aboriginal boys as farm workers or labourers. There was no recognition that our original Australians could ever rise above these expectations. However there were many who saw a changed approach to education as the key to changing attitudes in schools. Led by Alan Duncan, an academic from Sydney University, a group of people gathered to look at ways to overcome what they saw as the lack of educational opportunities available to Aboriginal students. This group of Aboriginal and white people formed the Aboriginal Education Council with the aim to change things so that Aboriginal students had available to them the same opportunities as are available to all students in the public school system. Members worked closely with Aboriginal people and their communities to determine the needs and to devise projects that could make a difference. So new ground was broken! This new and different approach and the network of people from across the community – black and white – set about working with the educational authorities to help overcome the problems and the deficiencies. It was quite apparent to this network of volunteers that while they saw education as the key to achieving successful outcomes through education, that social issues such as health, housing and poverty all mitigated against the successful advancement of Aboriginal students from kindergarten to tertiary level. As well as educational matters these other issues were taken up with Governments and with bureaucracies. So the Aboriginal Education Council members worked tirelessly to have politicians and bureaucrats recognise that issues to do with education were, without doubt, tied to the health of Aboriginal students, with how they were forced to live and to the fact that they were extremely poor. The Council had therefore to become political activists as well as being promoters of educational change. While there was, at that time a new awakening in the general community about the plight of Aborigines, there was little understanding of their culture and their way of life. So amongst its widening area in the educational field, the AEC took on the added role of community education. This was firstly a means of raising the necessary funds for the scholarships they were making available and secondly it was a way of introducing the public to Aboriginal people and letting them tell their story. This helped to raise a level of awareness that had hitherto been not there, and led to many leading businesses, corporations, many notable individuals and people from the general community, not only by providing funds, but also stimulating a new interest in the whole question of Aboriginal affairs. The success of the pilot programs and projects that have been initiated over the past forty years is detailed on this website. However, the fact that many which proved so successful were introduced to mainstream schooling demonstrates clearly the value of what a charitable organisation, absolutely independent of government funding, can do to facilitate change and to make a difference for the Aboriginal students of this State. |