The logic of boarding for remote Aboriginal and ...

The logic of boarding for remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students Presentation to the Boarding Australia Regional Boarding Forum, Darwin. 30 May 2018 John Guenther, Research Leader, Education and Training. Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education, Casuarina, NT.

Slide 1

Firstly I’d like to thank Boarding Australia for the privilege and opportunity of being able to share my thoughts today.

Slide 2

I acknowledge that we meet today on Larakia Country and pay my respects to the elders past and present. I also want to acknowledge the research community I have worked with over the last year which has contributed to the thinking behind this presentation. 1

Richard Stewart, Andrew Lloyd, Sam Osborne, Tessa Benveniste, Michelle Redman-McLaren, David Mander, Victor Lopez-Carmen, Marnie O’Bryan, Bill Fogarty, Gina Milgate, Samantha Disbray, Francis Bobongie, Peter Barrett, Janya McCalman—and the institutions they represent.

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The arguments for boarding are many and varied. My concern is for remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, who have been subject to something of a policy experiment over recent years which saw demand for boarding places grow by an astonishing 40% in the four years to 2016. (Commonwealth of Australia and Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet 2017) The experiment is premised on a range of arguments which see ‘good’ in boarding. The need for boarding is argued on educational, economic and social justifications, underpinned by the failure and deficits of remote communities, their schools and by implication, their families. The outcomes of the experiment are still yet to be determined. Though, one thing we can be confident of, is of a growth in Year 12 attainment and an increasing normalisation of secondary school experiences for young people 1.

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This assertion based on an analysis of Census data over the last three censuses such that in 2016, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who speak their own language, and live in very remote parts of Australia are more than 3 times more likely to attain year 12 than they did in 2006. Other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students are almost twice as likely to achieve Year 12. These findings will be published later this year.

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Slide 4

If I was to have put this slide up five years ago, it would have looked a lot different—sparse actually. I became interested in boarding as a topic in about 2013 when I discovered that there was almost no research literature on boarding schools for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. There was a lot of media attention at the time from a few vocal people, but apart from David Mander’s thesis (Mander 2012), the evidence was thin on the ground. Now, there are more than 25 peer reviewed research articles, including several PhDs and there have been half a dozen major government reviews (PwC's Indigenous Consulting 2017; KPMG 2016; Commonwealth of Australia and Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet 2017; Commonwealth of Australia 2017; Halsey 2017, 2018; House of Representatives Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs 2017) that deal with various aspects of boarding. I’m not going to go into the detail of these points, but just point out that there is considerable knowledge that has been generated through these studies. And we would be wise to take note of the findings. I have printed out a full reference list of articles if you are interested in pursuing these (See appendix 1).

Slide 5

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In summary, the evidence we do have now provides little support for the assumed ‘good’ of boarding. While there are some good news stories in the evidence, there is a lot more to be concerned about, particularly as it relates to the very real negative impacts of boarding on students, a point picked up in the House of Reps ‘Power of Education’ report (House of Representatives Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs 2017). The concerns are also mirrored in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the Study Away Review and the Halsey Review into Rural, Regional and Remote Education. As I see it the gaps in the evidence are now not in the area of student experience, or topics like success factors—we’ve got a lot on that already. The gaps are now in the area of policy analysis, economic analysis, theorising and a huge gap is in formal independent evaluations of scholarship programs and other initiatives like Transition Support, the numerous residential models, and other programs that focus on mentoring, aspiration, sporting academies, and other elements that feed into a complex system. Beyond the need for evidence, evaluations are absolutely essential in providing transparency and accountability for the use of taxpayer dollars 2.

Slide 6

Having seen the gaps in research, last year I worked on a couple of theorising projects with colleagues around the country. The first one I’ll mention is one I worked on with Bill Fogarty from ANU where we examined boarding through the lenses of ‘capital theories’: Human, Social and Identity (Guenther and Fogarty 2018). We saw that these theoretical perspectives were often represented tacitly in the rhetoric around education generally and in the

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At the time of writing there were no publicly available independent evaluation reports available that dealt with taxpayer funded programs.

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assumptions of boarding. The quote from the Halsey Review is one that brings some of these perspectives together.

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Here’s what Bill and I came up with. Without going into the detail, the point is that for every articulation of how the theories should work, there is an alternative reality that can—and often does—work for students, and for which there is ample empirical evidence. These alternatives are not just hypothetical musings. In many cases, we see these outcomes demonstrated with devastating consequences. For example, the assumptions related to the acquired human capital may well work at the individual level, but at the community level, if students take their human capital and don’t return to community it is likely that there will be a net economic loss to the community, exacerbating already difficult community conditions with a loss that erodes community resilience and potentially decreases future leadership capacity and opportunities for economic gains. There is emerging evidence in the work I am doing that in order to access the economic benefits of education, students from remote communities have to effectively give up their cultural identity in favour of an assimilated western identity. Similarly, the perceived benefits of social capital may not materialise as anticipated, partly because the power structures which hold the keys to social capital may work to protect their capital, excluding the remote student from entering the circle of social power. Conversely, where social capital is accessed by students they may inadvertently be excluded from the social and cultural capital that inheres in the social networks of the community from which they come. The evidence in identity capital is even more disturbing. While the hope of boarding is often described in terms of walking in two worlds, what we know, 5

particularly from Marnie O’Bryan’s work (O’Bryan 2016) is that students can end up not being able to walk in either.

Slide 8

The second piece of work I engaged with colleagues on was an attempt to map out a theory of change for boarding interventions 3. Now I’m sure none of us here believe the logic is as simple as this. But often, for those of us working in a small part of a bigger more complex system, our focus is on getting our bit right. If we work in transition support, then naturally we want to get that right. If we are working in a residential facility, we’d want to make sure it was working well. If we are working in the classroom with Aboriginal students, we’d be concerned about aspects of pedagogy, curriculum and assessment. If we are working in scholarship programs we’d be interested in making sure they are fit for purpose. And we’d like to think that we are doing ‘our bit’ in the simple logic that sees students progressing through school and come out the other end as whole, productive citizens who are able to contribute not just to the economy but as Halsey noted, to the social fabric of their community.

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Theory of change is a tool used by evaluators to assess the impact of program. It attempts to map the causal pathways from inputs through to impacts to determine if and how a program works.

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Slide 9

But as I discussed these things with my colleagues, it was obvious that the whole picture was a lot more complex than the simple logic. The ‘pathway to success’ was influenced by a huge array of factors, of ifs and buts, of enablers and blockages, all of which could not guarantee the desirable outcomes we all want to see so much. As this diagram shows imperfectly, the theory is pretty messy and highly unpredictable,

Slide 10

For a start, outcomes depend on a host of contextual factors relating to individuals, their families, their socio-cultural background and the institutional and political context of the day. So, while a program might work to build individual aspiration, unless we are at least mindful of the historical, cultural, spiritual and political environment in which aspiration is created, the program’s intentions might be misdirected, built on false assumptions.

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Slide 11

Over the years, when people have talked to me about what works in boarding, most of the conversations come back to finding the ‘right’ model. This is of course important, but as we discussed the various mechanisms of boarding, we soon realized it was more complex than this. Indeed, we need to be mindful of the individual, community, funding, policy and institutional mechanisms that drive boarding outcomes. So, for example, a focus on institutional mechanisms (such as parent and community communication and relationships) will ultimately fail to produce outcomes in the best interests of the student unless it also takes account of funding, of policy, of community capacity and of the individual motivators and drivers that contribute to the system.

Slide 12

When we thought about outcomes we reflected on the combination of intended and unintended outcomes, along with other desirable and undesirable outcomes. For example, we might all be working towards getting students through their education with satisfactory outcomes, which might look like a Year 12 or VET certificate, or maybe an identified pathway to a job, but in the process of doing this we might be inadvertently creating a negative outcome. A student finishes 8

school, gets a job as a lawyer and we think ‘great, they are successful’, but are we also complicit in that student’s loss of home language, identity confusion and social exclusion from the community they came from?

Slide13

As we tossed these ideas around, it soon became evident that it was all getting a bit hard to represent in a theory of change diagram. So, here’s how we represented it. The system is complex and as such, is driven by the combination of elements that it is composed of 4. If you poke the system in one area, like ‘funding’ for example, the systems wobbles around for a bit like a plate of jelly and then settles back close to its original form. However, the way you effect the greatest change in the system is not by poking it, but by treating it as a whole. So using the jelly example, you either shift the plate or do something else like heat it up and put it into a new mould before you reset it again. And even when you do effect system change, the nature of the complex system is such that the outcomes will be unpredictable.

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Complexity theory as it applies to systems is well developed. A useful starting point is http://cognitive-

edge.com/library/more/video/introduction-to-the-cynefin-framework/

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In simplified form, the theory looks like this. 1. Intended and desirable outcomes will be more likely when the system mechanisms work together in mutually supportive ways; 2. Unintended and undesirable outcomes will be more likely when the system mechanisms work independently of each other; and 3. Improving the likelihood of desirable and intended outcomes will happen when the actors in the context and within the mechanisms work together to negotiate and agree on the required processes and agree on the intended outcomes. And the final point is exactly why this kind of forum is so important. I think Boarding Australia should be commended for taking what I think is a fairly risky initiative such as they have embarked on with their series of boarding forums. What we’ve got here is a tremendous opportunity to work together and change the system for the better, producing better outcomes for students, communities, and schools. I think the Australian Government should also be commended for being open to hearing the voices of all stakeholders in the system, which is evidenced through the Royal Commission, Study Away, the Power of Education and the Independent Review into Regional Rural and Remote Education.

Slide 15

That said, the arguments for boarding are yet to be justified. While boarding should be an option, it must not become the default or only option that parents have for their children. The Wilson Review’s ‘feasibility’ argument for limiting secondary options in remote communities just don’t stack with our obligations under Education Acts and Human Rights (United Nations 2007) covenants to

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provide a quality education for all children to the age of 17 5. There are still far too many young people who are missing out (Guenther et al. 2016) 6. And while I’d acknowledge that in the Northern Territory the Department of Education’s Transition Support Unit has been very successful in encouraging students to continue with their education, without intending disrespect, the initiative on its own could be poking the plate of jelly—unless it engages more broadly with the system. I think the very positive aspect of TSU is that it has blown open a range of issues that DoE is thoughtfully tackling, such as what you do with young people who return from boarding school, disengaged from education. While there is now plenty of evidence on which we can draw, the research actually raises more questions than it answers. And we still don’t know where students end up after boarding, how many complete Year 12, how many get jobs, how many return to community and what the impact is on communities— good or bad. We don’t have any transparency in how taxpayer resources are used. The PWC Inc review demonstrates that even with the will to find out, our ability to get data to answer basic questions is limited. One thing is for sure, and that is we have to get away—and I think we are now—from a simple ‘what works’ or ‘best practice’ understanding of boarding. There is no such thing as best practice in complex systems and that is what we are dealing with in boarding. Complex systems require innovative and creative, collaborative thinking. Hopefully that is the kind of thinking we are engaging in here today. Finally, the absence of policy frameworks in the federal arena particularly, is something that needs to be rectified. Up to now, policy has been driven through those with loud voices promoting their own interests. I am however confident that this situation is changing. I’d like to believe that a government doesn’t commission four or five major reviews only to ignore the findings. I do believe there is an appetite for evidence informed policy now, and I look forward to seeing how initiatives such as the one we are participating in today contribute to policy and practice into the future. Thank you.

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Note that this argument and the associated recommendations to wind back secondary education in remote NT schools, is not supported in the NT’s Indigenous Education Strategy. However, the argument itself clearly had a measure of support at the time of the Review and was not challenged or rejected by DoE at the time. 6 My current estimates (based mostly on Census data) are that in very remote NT are that about 1150 young people are not enrolled at school, down from about 1500 two years ago. I attribute this change largely to the work of TSU.

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References Commonwealth of Australia (2017). Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. (Vol. Final Report Volume 13 Schools). Commonwealth of Australia, & Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (2017). Study Away Review: Review of Support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Secondary Students Studying Away From Home. Guenther , J., & Fogarty, W. (2018). Boarding school for remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students can have very damaging effects: new evidence-based research. EduResearch Matters: Australian Association for Research in Education. Guenther , J., Milgate, G., Perrett, B., Benveniste, T., Osborne, S., & Disbray, S. (2016). BOARDING SCHOOLS FOR REMOTE SECONDARY ABORIGINAL LEARNERS IN THE NORTHERN TERRITORY. SMOOTH TRANSITION OR ROUGH RIDE? Paper presented at the Australian Association for Research in Education Annual Conference, Melbourne, 30 November 2016 Halsey, J. (2017). Independent Review into Regional Rural and Remote Education—Discussion Paper. Department of Education and Training. Halsey, J. (2018). Independent Review into Regional, Rural and Remote Education: Final Report. House of Representatives Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs (2017). The power of education: From surviving to thriving--Educational opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Canberra: The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. KPMG (2016). Non-Government Indigenous Boarding Schools: Review of funding arrangements for the Northern Territory Government, Department of Education. Mander, D. (2012). The transition experience to boarding school for male Aboriginal secondary school students from regional and remote 12

communities across Western Australia. Joondalup WA: Edith Cowan University, Joondalup WA. O’Bryan, M. (2016). Shaping futures, shaping lives: an investigation into the lived experience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in Australian boarding schools. University of Melbourne, PwC's Indigenous Consulting (2017). Review of the IAS funded secondary school scholarships for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students. Final Report Part 1. United Nations (2007). United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Appendix 1

Peer reviewed research literature on boarding schools for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, 2008-2018

Benveniste, T., Dawson, D., Guenther, J., Rainbird, S., & King, L. (2016). PARENT PERSPECTIVES OF BOARDING: INSIGHTS FROM REMOTE ABORIGINAL FAMILIES. Paper presented at the Australian Association for Research in Education, Melbourne, 1 December 2016 Benveniste, T., Dawson, D., & Rainbird, S. (2015). The Role of the Residence: Exploring the Goals of an Aboriginal Residential Program in Contributing to the Education and Development of Remote Students. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 44(2), 163-172. Benveniste, T., Guenther, J., Dawson, D., & Rainbird, S. (2014). Out of sight, out of mind? Bringing Indigenous parent- boarding school communication to light. Paper presented at the 2014 AARE-NZARE Conference: Speaking back through research, Kelvin Grove, Queensland, 4 December 2014 Benveniste, T., Guenther, J., Dawson, D., & Rainbird, S. (2015). DECIPHERING DISTANCE: EXPLORING HOW INDIGENOUS BOARDING SCHOOLS FACILITATE AND MAINTAIN RELATIONSHIPS WITH REMOTE FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES. Paper presented at the Australian Association for Research in Education annual conference, Fremantle, 2 December 2015 Bobongie, F. (2017). Ngoelmun Yawar, Our Journey: The Transition and the Challenges for Female Students Leaving Torres Strait Island Communities for Boarding Schools in Regional Queensland. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 1-10, doi:10.1017/jie.2017.5. Bobongie, F. (2017). What is the Key to a Successful Transition for Indigenous Girls Moving From Torres Strait Island Communities to Boarding Colleges in Regional Queensland, Australia? International Journal of Technology and Inclusive Education, 6(2), 1144-1152. English, S., & Guerin, B. (2017). Boarding for Indigenous Australian secondary students: A contextual analysis of four options and their best features. Journal of Australian Indigenous Issues, 20(4), 31-53. English, S., & Guerin, B. (2017). What some female Indigenous secondary students say is important at an Indigenous residential college. Journal of Australian Indigenous Issues, 20(4), 71-89. Guenther, J., Disbray, S., Benveniste, T., & Osborne, S. (2017). ‘Red Dirt’ Schools and Pathways into Higher Education. In J. Frawley, S. Larkin, & J. A. Smith (Eds.), Indigenous Pathways, Transitions and Participation in Higher Education: From Policy to Practice (pp. 251-270). Singapore: Springer Singapore. Guenther , J., Milgate, G., Perrett, B., Benveniste, T., Osborne, S., & Disbray, S. (2016). BOARDING SCHOOLS FOR REMOTE SECONDARY ABORIGINAL LEARNERS IN THE NORTHERN TERRITORY. SMOOTH TRANSITION OR ROUGH RIDE? Paper presented at the Australian Association for Research in Education Annual Conference, Melbourne, 30 November 2016 Heyeres, M., McCalman, J., Langham, E., Bainbridge, R., Redman-MacLaren, M., Britton, A., et al. (2018). Strengthening the Capacity of Education Staff to Support the Wellbeing of Indigenous Students in

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Boarding Schools: A Participatory Action Research Study. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 1-14, doi:10.1017/jie.2017.42. Hunter, E. K. (2015). One foot in both worlds : providing a city education for Indigenous Australian children from a very remote community : a case study. Wagga Wagga NSW: Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga NSW. Mander, D. (2012). The transition experience to boarding school for male Aboriginal secondary school students from regional and remote communities across Western Australia. Joondalup WA: Edith Cowan University, Joondalup WA. Mander, D. (2015). Enabling Voice: Aboriginal Parents, Experiences and Perceptions of Sending a Child to Boarding School in Western Australia. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 44(Special Issue 02), 173-183, doi:doi:10.1017/jie.2015.21. Mander, D., Cohen, L., & Pooley, J. (2015). A critical exploration of staff perceptions of Aboriginal boarding students' experiences. Australian Journal of Education, 59(3), 312-328. Mander, D., Cohen, L., & Pooley, J. (2015). "If I Wanted to Have More Opportunities and Go to a Better School, I Just Had to Get Used to It": Aboriginal Students' Perceptions of Going to Boarding School in Western Australia. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 44(1), 26-36. Mander, D., & Lester, L. (2017). A Longitudinal Study Into Indicators of Mental Health, Strengths and Difficulties Reported by Boarding Students as They Transition From Primary School to Secondary Boarding Schools in Perth, Western Australia. Journal of Psychologists and Counsellors in Schools, 1-14, doi:10.1017/jgc.2017.1. McCalman, J., Bainbridge, R., Russo, S., Rutherford, K., Tsey, K., Wenitong, M., et al. (2016). Psycho-social resilience, vulnerability and suicide prevention: Impact evaluation of a mentoring approach to modify suicide risk for remote Indigenous Australian students at boarding school. [Article]. BMC Public Health, 16(1), doi:10.1186/s12889-016-2762-1. McCarthy, M. (2016). Parental choice of school by rural and remote parents. Issues in Educational Research, 26(1), 29-44. O’Bryan, M. (2015). Compelled to innovate: facilitating partnerships in cross-cultural education. UNESCO Observatory Multi-Disciplinary Journal in the Arts, 4(1), 1-22. O’Bryan, M. (2016). Shaping futures, shaping lives: an investigation into the lived experience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in Australian boarding schools. University of Melbourne, Osborne, S., Rigney, L.-I., Benveniste, T., Guenther , J., & Disbray, S. (2018). Mapping boarding school opportunities for Aboriginal students from the Central Land Council region of Northern Territory. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, doi:https://doi.org/10.1017/jie.2018.1. Pertl, J., & Guerin, B. (2017). The boarding school experiences of some Indigenous male secondary students: How the staff talk about the students. Journal of Australian Indigenous Issues, 20(4), 54-70. Redman-MacLaren, M. L., Klieve, H., Mccalman, J., Russo, S., Rutherford, K., Wenitong, M., et al. (2017). Measuring Resilience and Risk Factors for the Psychosocial Well-being of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Boarding School Students: Pilot Baseline Study Results. [Original Research]. Frontiers in Education, 2(5), doi:10.3389/feduc.2017.00005. Rogers, J. (2017). Photoyarn: Aboriginal and Maori girls' researching contemporary boarding school experiences. Australian Aboriginal Studies(1), 3-13. Smith, A. (2009). Indigenous Peoples and Boarding Schools: A Comparative Study. (pp. 59). Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Eighth session, New York, 18 - 29 May 2009. Stewart, R. (2015). Transition from Remote Indigenous Community to Boarding School: The Lockhart River Experience. UNESCO Observatory Multi-Disciplinary Journal in the Arts, 4(1), 1-18.

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