Listen to the Voices: Informing, Reforming, and Transforming Higher Education for First Nations’ Peoples in Australia

Abstract

This chapter will provide insights into the value of tertiary education journeys that are grounded within First Nations peoples’ own cultures and languages. This practice provides a structure that enables the learner to navigate through what could be argued to be an alien learning environment where learners are bombarded by language and/or epistemologies that serve to confuse and often exclude them from engaging in the learning activity. In Australia, First Nations people are relative newcomers to the university; hence, their engagement with the Western knowledges and epistemologies, which underpin higher education offerings in this country, has not been easy. Doubtless, this reality could be argued as reflecting the evolution of higher education in Australia. But equally, it could be argued that it is impossible to comprehend the contemporary realities of Indigenous higher education in Australia, without having some appreciation of how it has evolved within the wider framework of what Australian Education really is – an essentially colonial construct. In this chapter the author draws upon her own lived experience, as an Aboriginal woman and long-time educator, to critically reflect upon the impact of Australia’s colonial history and the increasing need for change that will enable First Nations students to engage in the process of empowering themselves through their education. Based upon her own experiences, she discusses some of the positive pathways that have begun to emerge in recent years. In exploring some realities of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student learning journeys she seeks to highlight experiences that have had a positive impact upon the individual’s capacity to take up the challenge.