Answer :

Social Work Theory and Practice

Little education among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children

Introduction   

This essay is highlighted on the social issue of the Australian Aboriginal children's education. The main purpose of this study is to mitigate the education-related problems of the Aboriginal people of Australia and thus, to recommend how this issue can be rooted out. In the report, the issue will be highlighted well. In the next part of the report the government policies, practices and strategies will be highlighted and it will be shown how the government has come up with its aid to the Aboriginal children's education. In the final part, the responsibility of the social care workers will be highlighted.  

Analysis   

Social Issues and effects of it on the population group 

Aboriginal people of Australia have been denied many of their rights like access to land, their culture, language, citizenship, education, employment and children’s schooling and education over the past two centuries. All these are issues and have negative effects on Australian Aboriginal people. Of all the above issues, children’s little education is one major social issue that has a negative impact on the Aboriginal children in Australia. The survey in this context shows that a person who has been oppressed by forced separation has a negative impact on the outcomes of child education (Telethonkids, 2020).  While on the one hand, it is easy for some Aboriginal children to overcome this adversity of little child education, on the other hand, for some other Aboriginal children, it can take many generations for continuous access to education and function positively effectively. Some evidence has been extracted from schools and that evidence refer that the parents of Aboriginal children have a great influence on their children's education and their children's education is influenced by their own experience. The evidence shows that the parents who are less educated are naturally less-interested in sending their children to school. Hence, this is one of the basic reasons behind this issue.  

Again some children develop thinking school of a little value of something unattainable if the parents of those children have a little value to them. Smith et al., (2018) have defined Aboriginal children in Australia. This means that children develop their habit of not giving value to their education from their parents’ culture and attitude towards school. All these issues can create negative effects in the later lives of Aboriginal children involving the cycle of educational disadvantages.  It has also been proved in many cases that racism has been a barrier and the risk factor for the poor education of Aboriginal Children in Australia. Racism can break down self-respect and promote aggressiveness. Being tortured with racism, many Aboriginal Children have been isolated from the mainstream of the Australian society and thus, they are deprived of their education.  Phillips, (2018) has defined the Aboriginal isolated people.  Thus the cultural value of Aboriginal people has been disputed. Strong cultural value and educational support are necessary to uphold self-respect and development in their later life (Telethonkids, 2020). Education can be said to be a key factor for the improvement of the life of Aboriginal Children because, in their future, education will increase their self-respect and potential in their professional life. Involvement and participation of Aboriginal people in education are necessary in order to improve socioeconomic and health outcomes.  

1. Description of the historical development of the welfare state and the role of human service workers play both within and outside the state. 

Historically, Aboriginal children have a relatively low level of involvement in education both in the pre-school primary education and also the post-compulsory education. Due to this non-participation, the Aboriginal children and the Aboriginal people as well have been a backward portion of the society and they have lagged behind from all their rights and receivables from the Australian society. Prior to the 1960s, the state government had the sole responsibilities of the affairs of the Aboriginal including Aboriginal education policies which differed from that of non-Aboriginal people across Australia. (Telethonkids, 2020). 

Strategies, programs and policies

The 1967 Referendum rendered power to the Commonwealth of Australia to legislate some federal policies involving aboriginal peoples and ordered to run those policies along with the state and territory governments. This fostered the significant reforms in Aboriginal children education. Policy changes took place with the introduction of the Aboriginal Study Grants Scheme in 1969 and also the Creation of the Commonwealth Department of Aboriginal Affairs in 1972. Hyland, (2019) has discussed education training. Both these incentives played a pivotal role in involving and retaining the Aboriginal students. The Australian government has come up with lots of national programs with aboriginal education training. One of such development programs for Aboriginal students is the Indigenous Education Direct Assistance (IEDA) programme (Telethonkids, 2020).

Role of human service workers

The Aboriginal children have been the most disadvantaged group in Australia from the past in respect of their education and other rights. Given this situation, all the human service care professionals and the other human service workers have a major responsibility to work for the better outcomes of Australian Aboriginals. The main roles of human service workers are the following: 

• The individual social workers need to go in the territory of Aboriginal people and conduct education programs to make the Aboriginal Children and their parents aware of the value of education. In this way, the Aboriginal community will be benefitted by human service workers.  
• Apart from going to the Aboriginal territory, the human workers should also conduct education programs in their own territory and thus will work in their own community. 
• It will be convenient for some social working units like NOGs and others to conduct such programs to teach Aboriginal children because such social working organizations have benefits for their large infrastructure and financial capital base.    

2. Identification of key theories and debates as well as key legislative judgments and analysis of their impact on service provision, service users and human service workers

Education in Aboriginal children has a great effect and hence, some theories can be convenient to make the Aboriginal children educated.  

Key theories 

Symbolic Interactionism: Symbolic interactionism is a theoretical framework to understand people's behaviour and viewpoints. In this context, human workers will understand the behaviour of the Aboriginal children when they will interpret some significant symbols in the environment in which they live. In this way, social workers will understand how the Aboriginal response in their society and how society responds to them.  

Functionalist perspective: Knox, (2019) has discussed a functionalist perspective. Under the Functional perspective, each aspect of society is interdependent on another and thus society is benefited. On the perspective of Aboriginal children education, it can be said that the Aboriginal parents will send their children to school to be educated and for a good job. The Aboriginal children will grow up and will get good jobs to support their families. In this way, Aboriginal children will be educated, law-abiding and will be tax-paying citizens and will support their state.  

Conflict perspective: According to Greer, Van Bunderen, and (2017), dysfunctions of power comes from conflict perspective According to Karl Marx, conflict theory is based on the idea that society is a dynamic entity and undergoes constant change. The conflict perspective is based on competition in society. Under this theory, when the Aboriginal children after being educated will grow up in the society they will compete for the limited resources in the society like money, leisure and other materials.  

Legislative judgment

It is necessary for the social workers to know the law in their day to day social activities. When the social workers will be engaged in teaching the Aboriginal students, they should keep in their mind the legal rules applicable in their teachings. Firstly, the language in the field of social work has to be clear to social workers. For example, the word, 'harm' is not mentioned in the Children Act 1989, but a social worker will have to be aware of where a child can suffer. Secondly, a social worker has to gain detailed knowledge on the Aboriginal child education so that he or she can make ethical decisions while teaching a child.   

Impacts of key theories, debates and legislative judgments

Different social theories will help social workers to make the Aboriginal students understand how society is impacting on them from different perspectives. For example, Symbolic interactionism will help them to understand how society is responding to the learners in their environment, Functionalist perspective will help them to know how they and their society are interdependent and the conflict theory makes them understand how they will compete in the society. In this way, they gain a broad perspective on society. On the other hand, the debates and legislative judgment make the service providing clear and ethical. With the legal judgment, the social education provider can judge the unethical issues in their service (Lawteacher, 2020). The service users this means the Aboriginal students will also know what are their legal and social obligations in terms of their learning. 

3. Description of the nature of disadvantage marginalizes Aboriginal children

There are several measures of participation, retention and attainment in the system of Australian education that have been considered as the basic disadvantages in Aboriginal children’s education system. These disadvantages have differentiated the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students in Western Australia and Australia. The disadvantages are the following:

Participation and retention 

From the past, Aboriginal children have relatively low levels of participation both at the primary level and higher-level schools in Australia. At the older age group also the Aboriginal children are less likely to be engaged than other non-Aboriginal children. Firstly, enrolling all the Aboriginal children can be regarded as a positive sign; the Aboriginal children have a lower rate of attendance in schools than that of the other non-Aboriginal children. Ellis, (2019) has discussed Lower Primary School Students’ Attendance. From this explanation, it is clear that the Aboriginal children are considered less important by the other non-Aboriginal children and this is a social barrier to the children. The Aboriginal children remain isolated from the other children. Thus the other groups marginalized the Aboriginal people thinking them not important (Telethonkids, 2020). 

Secondly, from the perspective of academic performance, it has been noticed that Aboriginal children have lower levels of academic performance in comparison to other non-Aboriginal children. The reasons behind this seem to be complex and have some other aspects of disadvantages that have impacted negatively other students' intention to continue their academic tasks related to primary and secondary education. Again it has been seen that in the national school level, the performance of Aboriginal people is lower than the non-Aboriginal children. It has been researched that community-specific differences have isolated Aboriginal children. The main point is that geographical differences and cultural differences have made a disparity between the culture and beliefs of Aboriginals and other populations of Australia. This disparity has made differences in socioeconomic status with the other people in Australia. The third disadvantage is that some have observed that the Aboriginal people have been hampered by the inadequate skills of many schools to implement the policies, programs and plans that have been designed by the Australian government. Further, it has also been said that those policies are not strategic at all so that the key issues have been addressed. All the above-mentioned advantages have created social problems for Aboriginal children to have their education properly.  

4. Description of Government policies and practices and legal requirements 

Governmental policies and practices

Prior to 1960, it was only the responsibility of the State government of Australia in regard to Aboriginal affairs and thus, the Aboriginal policies were different from the other group of people in Australia. There was a common idea in the minds of general people that Aboriginal children should have minimal education and not like the non-aboriginal people. The high number of Aboriginal children in Christian missions between 1940 to 1970 fired racial differences and this also led to the forcible removal of children from their families and placing them in government-aid schools. In this context, the Western Australian government came up with its strongest backing to help the Aboriginal children as a guardian of all the aboriginal children up to the age of 21 years. With the Australian government policies, the exclusion of Aboriginal children from education was wiped out by 1950. The Australian government abolished the racial differences between the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children and education became more available to the aboriginal children. The Aboriginal children started to attend schools with a higher rate in mainly primary schools.   

Education practices and legal requirements

From over the half-century, the Aboriginal policies, from exclusion, have moved to the field of cultural inclusiveness. Rawnsley et al., (2018) has emphasized Cultural Competency in a Legal Service and Justice Agency for Aboriginal Peoples It can be mentioned here that after 1970, the Australian government made a practice of picking up the Aboriginal children for their education and this practice worked as a positive driver behind the welfare of Aboriginal Children. The quality of information that has been held has been accessed by the Aboriginal people of Australia and it is necessary to identify those indigenous clients in those systems. The ABS has referred to a standard for the identification of indigenous people. The standard has been a practice and it is being applied to identify the indigenous people and to improve the quality of their education (human rights, 2020).

In Australia, the school leaving age was waived in the year 2006 to extend the compulsory education age of 16 years. By the year 2008, it was expected to lift the age to 17 years. These legislative rules enabled the young people and children either to attend a school or take compulsory training. This led to an advantage of the young people of Australia that they enrolled in a school but they did not have to undergo a schooling period of two years. Prior to compulsory education, the Western Australian Department of Education and Training offered a Kindergarten education program (Telethonkids, 2020). 

5. Articulation on the responses of policies towards globalization, privatisation and neo-liberalism.

With the globalization, privatisation and neo-liberation, there have been lots of changes in the life of Australian Aboriginal people.  

Globalisation

With the new globalization, Aboriginal people ate at the crossroad of globalization and in many cases, the Aboriginal people challenged the globalization. The Australian Government has tried to make the life of Aboriginal people better but the Aboriginal people do not believe that humanity will benefit from the world-class culture of consumerism (Humanrights, 2020). Aboriginal people have their own experience from over 500 years and they also believe that societies of consumers and also the environment grow with the other peoples. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development was unable to transfer the wealth from North to South. This was due to the reason that such transfer would require a higher cost and the reduction in the consumption of wealth in rich countries. The Australian governmental policies have helped much to meet the challenges in their life. The education program has made them educated and they have learned to accept and face lots of challenges in their life.  

Privatisation 

Gardam, Giles & Hayhurst (2017) have discussed privatization on Aboriginal children. Privatization has also boosted the positive attributes of the Aboriginal people of Australia. There have been many changes due to challenges from privatization in Australia. According to the new privatization act in Australia, Aboriginal people who had jobs and could afford to build houses were able to obtain freehold title to the rights of land on the condition that 80 per cent of the local Aboriginal people agreed to the selling of land. In this scenario, there is a tension between the land council's intention to earn a profit and the individual's desire to pay for the land. In this regard, some private landowners' intention was also involved to afford the land.  

Neo-liberation 

According to an article in Jstor, (2011), while a point comes here that the new concept, neo-liberal policy' has generated lots of opportunities for the Aboriginal people, here it is to know first what is neo-liberation. This refers to a new type of demand in the life of Aboriginal people. The strategy related to neo-liberation policy is not only to meet the needs of the Aboriginal people but also to meet the requirements of the contemporary government shift towards the Australian government. Instead of shifting the resources among the Aboriginal people autocracy has come in the hands of some aboriginal people and this has not helped in the Aboriginal child education. (Hinkson, M. & Fullenwieder, (2019).has discussed Australia and Canada: towards an analysis of neoliberal primitivism.

6.  Articulation on contemporary practice strategies for working in the human services 

The social care workers have much more responsibilities to do welfare for the aboriginal people in Australia. The social work academics have mentioned that there is a relation between the aboriginal people and social workers. The social workers of Australia are responsible for the wellbeing of Aboriginal people in Australia. Price et al., (2019) have discussed education workers. As their responsibility, the education workers in Australia. The social workers have known about the history of Aboriginal people, with their social welfare activities, they have contributed to the education of Aboriginals. Through many ideas and many creative ways, the social workers have contributed to the welfare of the Aboriginal people and thus, they have provided them with their human rights with all other demands. Placements were given through placement agencies to many Aboriginal students which benefitted them much from social context. The social workers also monitored the old age Aboriginal people and thus they gained the learning through them. 

Society has benefited from many respects. On the one hand, the research and development by the social workers have contributed to the creation of new resources for the benefits of both the one aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. With the new researches in society, social workers have innovated skills for the benefits of the next generation of the Aboriginal people. The intensity of cross-cultural issues has decreased because social workers have interacted with the Aboriginal group through their regional language. The social workers also have learned the culture of Aboriginal people. Thus a cross-cultural combination has been built between the aboriginal people and the health workers. All these bridges have helped to make a strong base of the Aboriginal child education. The full study emphasizes more concentration on the part of the social workers for the betterment of the lifestyle of Aboriginal people in Australia. The social workers have one more responsibility and that is the responsibility towards the community advocacy. Aboriginal people are a part of the community of Australia and the social workers have their major responsibility towards public advocacy. Aboriginal child education is a part of public advocacy and through this public welfare, the social workers can create the benefits of the Indigenous people in Australia. In this way, social workers have built a link between the past and the present situation in Australian society. Finally, it can be said that the health workers in Australia have provided education to the Aboriginal children outside the schools also through different community members and the old age people. They have been engaged with many social NGOs and have taught lots of Aboriginal students.  

Conclusion 

Aboriginal People in Australia are deprived of their human rights and other benefits in Australian society. Aboriginal children are a group that is majorly deprived of their proper education and due to their deprivation of education; they are lagging behind from their social status in comparison to other non-Aboriginal people of Australia. Australian Government from the very past has helped the Aboriginals of Australian through many policies, practices and strategies for their improvement of life standard. Social workers have also a great role to make welfare for the aboriginal people children in Australia.   It is recommended that social workers should be involved in the welfare work of Aboriginals more and more in Australia to give them actual justice for their better life. Training should be arranged in a better way by social workers with the help of the Australian government. The individual social workers should join with some welfare organizations to do this.