Abstract:
The areas of concern, the domains and the priority areas - whatever policymakers wish to coin them - have not changed since the first Indigenous education policy in 1989 (DEET, 1989). The deficit discourses, standardised testing based on non-Indigenous values, and the inability to report progress continues to demoralise and ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students remain at the lower rungs of educational outcome indicators maintaining societal and institutional constructs. In this presentation, I argue that there is a need to dramatically reform the approach to Indigenous education transforming the hegemonic positioning assumed by the coloniser. Through the analysis of Indigenous education policy discourses and how they position the very people that they advocate for, language as a new form of colonisation is made evident.