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Education of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people SCHOOL CHILDREN(A) ACHIEVING READING BENCHMARKS, AUSTRALIA
SCHOOL CHILDREN(A) ACHIEVING NUMERACY BENCHMARKS, AUSTRALIA OVERALL ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE There is a high level of disparity in the overall academic performance of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students in Australia. In 2002, the WAACHS found that more than half of Indigenous students aged 4–16 years (58%) in Western Australia were rated by their teachers as having low overall academic performance. The incidence of low academic performance is considerably higher among Indigenous students than non-Indigenous students. In comparison, in 1993 less than one-fifth of non-Indigenous students aged 4–16 years (19%) in Western Australia were rated as having low overall academic performance according to the WACHS. Teacher rated academic performance for Indigenous students for numeracy and literacy was similar to overall academic performance. In 2002, 59% of Indigenous students aged 4–17 years in Western Australia were rated as having low academic performance in literacy, and 57% were rated as having low academic performance in numeracy. The disparity in academic performance between Indigenous students and non-Indigenous students is evident from the earliest years of schooling onwards, and is maintained until the early high school years. For example, similar proportions of Western Australian Indigenous students in Year 1 (39%) and Year 7 (38%) were rated as having average or above average academic performance. In comparison, 82% of non-Indigenous students in Year 1 and 81% in Year 7 were rated as having average or above average academic performance. The apparent rise in performance among Indigenous students observed from Year 8 onwards merely reflects the fact that some of the lower performing Indigenous students have by then left school. Evidence suggests that if a student begins school with a learning deficit, and has not caught up to their peers by their fourth year of schooling, it is most likely they will never catch up.(EndNote 4) (EndNote 5) Some researchers suggest that the key to achieving educational parity for Indigenous children may lie in the pre-school and early school years. STUDENTS(a) ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE(b), WESTERN AUSTRALIA
STUDENTS(a) RATED AT AVERAGE OR ABOVE AVERAGE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE(b), WESTERN AUSTRALIA INDIGENOUS STUDENTS(a) RATED AT AVERAGE OR ABOVE AVERAGE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE(b) BY LEVEL OF RELATIVE ISOLATION, WESTERN AUSTRALIA – 2002 ...LEVEL OF RELATIVE ISOLATION The academic performance of Indigenous students in Western Australia varied across Levels of Relative Isolation, with the proportion of Indigenous students rated by their teachers at average or above average academic performance decreasing as isolation increased. A little under half (49%) of Indigenous students were found to be at average or above average academic performance in the Perth metropolitan area (i.e. No relative isolation) compared with 21% of Indigenous students in areas of Extreme isolation. FACTORS SIGNIFICANTLY ASSOCIATED WITH ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE In the WAACHS a wide range of factors associated with the academic performance of Indigenous students were analysed. These included factors related to the students own physical health and social and emotional wellbeing as well as factors relating to their primary carer, family and household and school environment. As factors can be interrelated, multivariate analysis techniques were used to determine which factors had a significant effect on academic performance, independent of their effects on other factors. Three key factors were found to be the predominant drivers associated with low academic performance. While these were not the only factors associated with academic performance they represent those which had the most impact. They were selected as the most powerful due to both the strength of their association with low academic performance and the high proportion of Indigenous students affected by them. The three factors were: emotional or behavioural difficulties, school attendance and the educational attainment of the carers of Indigenous students.
...EMOTIONAL/BEHAVIOURAL DIFFICULTIES The extent to which Indigenous children and young people experience emotional or behavioural difficulties affects their ability to grow up to be emotionally resilient young people.(EndNote 6) Western Australian Indigenous students assessed by their teachers at high risk of clinically significant emotional or behavioural difficulties were almost three times more likely than students at low risk to have low academic performance. In 2002, around one in six (17%) Indigenous students aged 4–17 years in Western Australia were rated at high risk of clinically significant emotional or behavioural difficulties by their teachers. Four in five (80%) of these students were also rated as having low academic performance by their teachers. In contrast, less than half (48%) of Indigenous students at low risk of clinically significant emotional or behavioural difficulties were also rated as having low academic performance. The most common specific emotional or behavioural difficulty experienced by Indigenous students (as assessed by their teachers) was hyperactivity followed by conduct problems and problems with social behaviour, such as sharing. In 2002, a little over one-fifth (22%) of Indigenous students in Western Australia were assessed as being at high risk of clinically significant hyperactivity. Children with hyperactivity have significant problems with restlessness and fidgeting and are easily distracted and often unable to stop and think things through or finish what they have started.(EndNote 6) Just under one in five (18%) Indigenous students at high risk of clinically significant hyperactivity were rated as having average or above average academic performance. In contrast over half (52%) of Indigenous students at low risk of clinically significant hyperactivity were rated as having average or above average academic performance.
Almost one in five (19%) Indigenous students were assessed as being at high risk of conduct problems. Children with conduct problems display a range of behaviours including lying, stealing and fighting, along with temper tantrums and disobedience.(EndNote 6) Just over one in five (23%) Indigenous students at high risk of clinically significant conduct problems were rated as having average or above average academic performance. In contrast, 48% of Indigenous students at low risk of clinically significant conduct problems were rated as having average or above average academic performance. Around one in six (17%) Indigenous students were at high risk of problems with prosocial behaviour (i.e. had poor social skills). Social skills that entail being considerate, sharing, helpful and kind are abilities that are important at school as well as at home, work and in recreation.(EndNote 6) Just over one in five (23%) Indigenous students with a high risk of clinically significant problems with prosocial behaviour, and 48% of Indigenous students at low risk were rated as having average or above average academic performance. Less than one in ten students were assessed as being at high risk of peer problems (9%) or emotional symptoms (7%). Children with peer problems may not have friends, be liked, be picked on by other children, play alone or prefer adult company to the company of peers.(EndNote 6) Children with emotional problems may be overly sad, fearful, worried or nervous. They may also complain of physical symptoms even when these are shown to have no physical cause.(EndNote 6) Similar proportions of Indigenous students at high risk of clinically significant emotional symptoms (29%) and peer problems (25%) were assessed as having average or above average academic performance. In contrast, much higher proportions of Indigenous students at low risk of clinically significant emotional symptoms (44%) and peer problems (45%) were assessed as having average or above average academic performance.
PROPORTION OF INDIGENOUS STUDENTS(a) AT AVERAGE OR ABOVE AVERAGE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE(b) BY RISK OF CLINICALLY SIGNIFICANT SPECIFIC DIFFICULTIES(B), WESTERN AUSTRALIA – 2002
... ABSENCE FROM SCHOOL School attendance was significantly associated with academic performance – missing even a few days of schooling has a negative relationship with academic performance regardless of a student's Indigenous status. In 2002, median days absent from school among Indigenous students was 26 days. This was considerably higher than median days absent for non-Indigenous students, 8 days in 1993. In 2002, Indigenous students who were absent from school for 26 days or more were one and a half times more likely to be rated at low academic performance than Indigenous students who were absent for less than 26 days in a school year. A range of factors were associated with Indigenous students' attendance at school including their carer's education, risk of clinically significant emotional or behavioural difficulties, students in families with multiple life stress events, whether a language other than English was main language spoken at home (Aboriginal English or an Aboriginal language), difficulties sleeping, and whether the student attended day care. Academic performance and school attendance are both also associated with Level of Relative Isolation. The decline in average academic performance associated with absence from school varies with Level of Relative Isolation, declining the most in more isolated areas. For example, in 2002 academic performance for Indigenous students living in or close to major centres was rated at average or above average for 61% of students with zero days absent and 54% of students with 20 days absent. In comparison, in areas of Extreme isolation, 47% of students with zero days absent were rated at average or above average academic performance in comparison to 19% of students with 20 days absent and 10% of students with 100 days absent. This suggests that students in or near larger population centres are more able to catch up when they miss a few days of school compared with students in more isolated areas. ... PRIMARY CARER'S EDUCATION Indigenous students in the primary care of a person who had completed 13 or more years of education were over two times less likely to have low academic performance than students whose primary carer had completed between one and nine years of education. Around six in ten (62%) Indigenous students whose carers had 13 or more years of education were rated by their teachers at average or above average academic performance. As the number of years of education for carers declined so too did the proportion of Indigenous students with average or above average academic performance. Indigenous students whose carers had not attended school were the least likely to have average or above average academic performance (25%). INDIGENOUS STUDENTS(A) AT AVERAGE OR ABOVE AVERAGE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE(B) BY PRIMARY CARER EDUCATION(C), WESTERN AUSTRALIA – 2002 IMPROVING ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE Despite gains in some areas in recent years, such as improvements in literacy skills, the data presented in this article suggest that there is still enormous potential for positive improvement in one of the key areas of human development – education – for the majority of Indigenous children and young people. Issues around the lower academic performance of Indigenous students are complex, with many factors involved. This article has focused on three key factors associated with low academic performance – risk of emotional or behavioural difficulties, school attendance and primary carer's education. While the analysis presented suggests that there is potential for improvement in each of these areas, it also suggests that improvement in any one of these areas will not in itself solve the problem of low academic performance. For example, improving Indigenous students school attendance should lead to improvements in academic performance. However the gap of over 20 percentage points between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students with average or above average academic performance who have no days absent from school, points to the presence of other factors that are contributing to Indigenous students' lower rates of academic performance. STUDENTS WITH AVERAGE OR ABOVE AVERAGE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE(A): DAYS ABSENT FROM SCHOOL, WESTERN AUSTRALIA
ENDNOTES
2. Zubrick, S and Silburn, S et al 1997, Western Australian Child Health Survey: Education, health, and competence, Australian Bureau of Statistics and the TVW Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, Perth. 3. House of Representatives Standing Committee on Education and Training 2002, Boys: Getting it right - Report on the inquiry into the education of boys. Australian House of Representatives, Canberra. 4. Juel, C 1988,'Learning to read and write: A longitudinal study of 54 children from first to fourth grades,' Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 80, no. 4, pp. 437–47. 5. Francis, D et al 1996, 'Developmental lag versus deficit models of reading disability: A longitudinal, individual growth curves analysis', Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 88, pp. 3–17. 6. Zubrick, S and Silburn, S et al 2005, The Western Australian Aboriginal Child Health Survey: The social and emotional wellbeing of Aboriginal children and young people, Curtin University of Technology and Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, Perth. 7. Goodman, R and Simmons, H et al 2000, 'Using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) to screen for child psychiatric disorders in a community sample', British Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 177, pp. 534–9. 8. Goodman, R, SDQ: Scoring the SDQ, viewed 8 June 2006, <http://www.sdqinfo.com/ba3.html>. 9. Zubrick, S and Lawrence, D et al 2006, Testing the Reliability of Aboriginal Children's Mental Health – An Analysis Based on the Western Australian Aboriginal Child Health Survey, Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, Australian Bureau of Statistics, cat. no. 1351.0.55.011, ABS, Canberra. 10. McKeich, R 1971, Problems of part-Aboriginal Education with Special Reference to the South-west Region of Western Australia,PhD Thesis, The University of Western Australia, Perth. 11. Beresford, Q and Partington, G 2003, Reform and Resistance in Aboriginal Education: The Australian Experience, The University of Western Australia, Perth.
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