Aboriginal graduates in South Australian certificate set highs as Warraippendi School meets special needs

Warriappendi School at Marleston has a special program that helps Aboriginal students engage again in the education process.

Warriappendi School at Marleston has a special program that helps Aboriginal students engage again in the education process.

A record 319 Aboriginal students (24 more than the record set in 2015) completed their South Australian Certificate of Education in 2016.

They included Jaylon Newchurch, from Salisbury High School in Adelaide northern suburbs, whose tertiary entrance ranking score was 99.05.

The gap remains but progress is emerging in Aboriginal education.

Today, Aboriginal students from remote community schools can get financial help to attend the Wiltja high school program in Adelaide. Wiltja students enrol at Woodville High School or Windsor Gardens Vocational College and attend both mainstream and Wiltja classes. Students board at the Wiltja residence at Northgate.

Aboriginal students who have difficulties at traditional high schools can attend Warriappendi School at Marleston. Warriappendi has a special program that helps students engage again in the education process.

The state government invested extra funds in the South Australian Aboriginal Sports Training Academy across South Australia.

Special learning programs are provided for students at Aboriginal schools in the outback, regional centres and metropolitan Adelaide. These take account of culture, social and learning experiences. Aboriginal languages are spoken at most Aboriginal schools.

Anangu schools on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytatiara lands in South Australia’s far north are at Amata, Ernabella, Fregon, Indulkana, Kenmore Park, Mimili, Murpatja and Pipalyatjara.

Preschools and kindergartens are at Kalaya Children’s Centre, Queenstown; and Kaunra Plains, Elizabeth.

Aboriginal schools are at Carlton Primary, Port Augusta; Kaurna Plains, Elizabeth; Koonibba, Marree, Oak Valley, Maralinga; Oodnadatta, Port Pearce, Raukkan and Yalata.

From the 1839 Native Location School run by the German missionaries, the earliest schools for Aboriginals at Adelaide, Encounter Bay and Port Lincoln (and another school at Walkerville) were comparative failures.

Children's attendance was procured by food; others were sent by the parents on condition that they receive a blanket for three months' attendance and others went sent by the police if found begging about town. No healthy adults were entitled to receive a blanket on the Queen's birthday in early colonial days unless they had a child in school.  Despite the jeering of newspapers, aptitude wasn’t the children’s problem but the cultural divide that blighted early relationships with Aboriginals and the settlers.

All Aboriginal schools became boarding institutions to maximise control over the children.