Today was a proud day. I travelled back to Alice Springs to see the Mulga Bore School teachers graduate from their Certificate IV in Indigenous Education Work. I had seen them graduate from their Certificate III a couple of years ago. I remember at that time it was such a proud moment. Families had come in to see the ceremony and celebrate the very first members of the community EVER to graduate a Tertiary course. Their first question after that Graduation – what’s next? What can we do now? Certificate IV seemed the next logical step but it was with some trepidation that we enrolled them. This course would require a lot more written work and a lot more abstract thinking. It would be a much bigger challenge for a group of women who had not gone past a few months at year 9 level. I should have known better than to underestimate them! In a little less than 2 years, with lots of hard work and dedication from them, the school staff and the Batchelor Institute Staff, four teachers from Mulga Bore and one from Perrawaw (Clinic) homeland had completed all the requirements and today was the final step in their journey. To watch them in their yellow graduation gowns and sashes, process down the aisle and take their places next to all of the other proud graduants left a lump in my throat. All of the Senior students from the two schools were brought in to witness the occasion and seeing the looks of pride and hearing their clapping and cheering made me hopeful for more occasions like this in the future.
In our academic world of PhDs and Masters Degrees a Certificate IV might not sound like much of an achievement, but I know and they know what it took to get here today and I am so proud that I have been able to walk that journey with them.
3 comments:
Indigenous people must be trained as teachers “with a view to the progressive transfer of responsibility for the conduct of [educational] programmes to these peoples as appropriate.” Indigenous peoples must also be free to establish their own educational facilities, and the State must support these institutions with “appropriate” financial, technical, material and human resources.
Not that Australia is committed to these rights, but they are in international law (draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the 1989 ILO Convention No. 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples). Hooray for the women of Mulga Bore!
What an achievement! Well done teachers at Mulga Bore!
Hi olivia,
thanks for that. I may need to remind the present administration fo some of those international rights!!
Lisa x
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