Cultural training for teachers branded a ‘form of racism’

Aboriginal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has branded ‘cultural training’ for teachers a form of racism.

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Aboriginal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has branded “cultural training” for teachers a form of racism.

In Senate estimates hearings on Thursday, the Coalition senator criticised an “Indigenous cultural competency report’’ produced by the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership, warning that it ­assumed Aboriginal students could not learn like other ­children.

“I’m surprised by the extensive work that’s been done around cultural competency and cultural safety,’’ she said. “I can’t see it as being of great educational benefit to students, and it seems to make life kind of difficult for teachers at the same time.

“I’d like to see AITSL use its resources to give teachers pedagogical competency rather than fixate on this separatist idea of cultural competency, which seems to imply that Indigenous students don’t learn the same as non-Indigenous peers.

“To me that sounds a bit like, well, racism.”

Senator Price, a former deputy mayor of Alice Springs, said she was struck by the report’s statement that the “legacy of colonisation’’ undermined the rights of Indigenous students to a fair and just education, and that “Australian education systems were never designed for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’’. “Can you please elaborate specifically on how colonisation is undermining Indigenous students’ education?’’ she asked AITSL executives.

The AITSL representatives took the question on notice.

Senator Price was referring to an AITSL report on Indigenous cultural competency, released in June as part of its Building a Culturally Responsive Australian Teaching Workforce project.

The report recommends teachers connect with Aboriginal families in their communities, rather than expecting them to meet at school, and includes a suggestion that Indigenous children be tested in their home languages, rather than English.

“For many, education is the means through which dreams and aspirations are realised,’’ the report states. “For others, though, education is something to be ­endured for little or no gain.

“The legacy of colonisation has undermined Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students’ access to their cultures, identities, histories and languages.

“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students have not had access to a complete, relevant, and responsive education.’’

The report recommends that teachers and principals be made more “self-aware’’ of their attitudes and assumptions towards Indigenous students, and be given “self-reflection tools to support them to increase their awareness of the assumptions underlying their personal identity in culture’’.

“The cultural responsiveness of the teacher is ultimately a function of their world view and implicit biases,’’ it states.

The report cites an anonymous submission calling for Indigenous students to be tested in their first language. And it calls on teachers to work with families “beyond the school gate’’ instead of expecting them to meet “on school grounds’’.

“Building relationships is a necessary part of being an active member in any community and, crucially, a lack of relationships and trust will often lead to students not attending school and becoming disengaged from education,’’ it states.

“Teachers need to engage with students and their families beyond the school gate to understand their world and what they bring with them to school instead of the expectation to meet on school grounds.’’

Indigenous teenagers are four times more likely to drop out of high school before finishing Year 10, census data shows.