Education Educational Equality, Equity, and Sui Generis Rights in Australian Higher Education Theorising the Tensions and Contradictions

THE KEY IDEALS

E DUCATIONAL E QUALITY  This concept aligns with the Aristotelian Equality Principle (the same for all).  The straightforward idea contained in arguments for educational equality has been well-expressed by Brighouse (1995, p. 145) as, ‘…the same educational opportunities must be available to equally talented individuals with the same willingness to make an effort to acquire the necessary skills and qualifications’.

E DUCATIONAL E QUITY  This concept aligns with the Aristotelian Fairness Principle (different but appropriate) according to disadvantage/need…compensatory to achieve education outcomes.  The Gonski report (DEEWR, 2011, p.105) suggests that equity in education means: …ensuring that differences in educational outcomes are not the result of differences in wealth, income, power or possessions. Equity in this sense does not mean that all students are the same or will achieve the same outcomes.

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy (or AEP) 1990  Aimed to achieve “broad equity between Aboriginal people and other Australians in access, participation and outcomes in all forms of education by the turn of the century” (Commonwealth of Australia (Hughes Report), 1988, p.2).  Larkin (2011, p. 2) observes that ‘twenty years later despite progress in some areas, there is little evidence to suggest we have made significant inroads into the Taskforce’s target of broad equity for Indigenous people’.

S UI G ENERIS R IGHTS  Sui generis rights is a Latin phrase meaning ‘of its own genus’. It is used by international legal mechanisms to identify the rights of Indigenous Peoples living within nations but whose pre-existent rights have not been extinguished by colonisation and subsequent overlays of imposed legal structures; as being ‘of itself’, that is unique and cannot be included in a wider category. Adopted by General Assembly Resolution 61/295 on 13 September

77 The factors which modern international organisations and legal experts (including Indigenous legal experts and members of the academic family) have considered relevant to understanding the concept of ‘Indigenous’ include: priority in time with respect the occupation and use of a specific territory; the voluntary perpetuation of cultural distinctiveness, which may include aspects of language, social organisation, religion and spiritual values, modes of production, laws and institutions; self-identification, as well as recognition by other groups, or by State authorities, as a distinct collectivity; and an experience of subjugation, exclusion or discrimination, whether or not these conditions persist. Definition of ‘Indigenous’

UN DRIPs Article 13 1.Indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generations their histories, languages, oral traditions, philosophies, writing systems and literatures, and to designate and retain their own names for communities, places and persons. 2. States shall take effective measures to ensure that this right is protected and also to ensure that Indigenous peoples can understand and be understood in political, legal and administrative proceedings, where necessary through the provision of interpretation or by other appropriate means.

UN DRIPs Article Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their educational systems and institutions providing education in their own languages, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning. 2. Indigenous individuals, particularly children, have the right to all levels and forms of education of the State without discrimination. 3. States shall, in conjunction with Indigenous peoples, take effective measures, in order for Indigenous individuals, particularly children, including those living outside their communities, to have access, when possible, to an education in their own culture and provided in their own language.

Conflicts of Meaning

Conflicts of Aggregation: From Individualized Equity …

To Sub-Group Quasi Equality?

Access (proportion of Indigenous students among commencing domestic students) Retention (the proportion of Indigenous students who re-enroll at an institution in a given year compared with the students who were enrolled in the previous year, less those students who have completed their course). Success (the mean student progress rate for the previous year for Indigenous students, this being the proportion of units passed within a year to the total units enrolled). Completions (the proportion of Indigenous students completing all the academic requirements of a course). 13 Conflicts of Implementation: From Performance Measures…

To a New Vision… Universities need to look beyond the current popular deficit approach when considering how to increase participation and outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Instead, I challenge the sector to look within itself and reflect on systemic and institutional factors that may serve to exclude Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students from undertaking higher education and, once in the system, continue their studies to pursue higher degrees by research. Associate Professor Sue Green, IHEAC, Increasing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students’ participation in higher education, 4th Annual Higher Education Congress, 8 March 2011.

Cultural Rights: Both Ways Equality? 15

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