TW *v,
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The Commission (7.47) saw the urgency of issues demanding
an urgency of response. It set the responsibility back into
schools to develop appropriate five year programmes to improve
4
education for Aborigines, a move which also recognised the diversity
of the social worlds of Aboriginal groups. Different groups
in different situations would need different solutions to their
problems.
I*
The Schools Commission Report for the Triennium 1982-1984
again returned to the issues it had isolated earlier. It noted
with approval the upsurge of interest in multi-culturalism following
the Galbally Report of 1978 and the foundation of the Australian
Institute for Multicultural Affairs in 1980.
Multiculturalism as an approach to schooling had developed
far beyond a preoccupation with disadvantage and the need to
teach English as a second language. Ethnic schools were now
being funded as a matter of policy, a recognition of multiculturalism
in structural terms. Of all the policy-making bodies examined,
it is the Schools Commission alone that recognised the need for
multi-structures for ethnic groups and drew Aborigines into
the multi-cultural perspective.
The Cntnτ∏ι¾⅞ion took pains to include Aborigines in its view
of multiculturalism:
Although the main proponents of a policy of multi-
culturalism have been the immigrant ethnic groups,
the policy programmes which are taking shape are
not confined to those groups. For example, it
is important to include the teaching of Aboriginal
languages and cultures since Aborigines are a significant
and important part of our multi-cultural society.
Indeed, the need is to define a policy in such
a way that it relates to the whole population of
Australia and responds to the pluralist needs within
the population (Australian Schools Commission,
1982:5.108)..
The Commission noted the dangers of such policy becoming reified,
of multicultural education degenerating into the use of slogans