The name is absent

CHAPTER XIX
*
THE ’WORLDS’ OF THE INSTITUTIONS STUDIED:
' PT. AUGUSTA AND ADE LAIDE

■V

19.1 Port Augusta High School

Schools at Port Augusta are zoned. The Aboriginal enrolment
of Port Augusta High School is composed of Aborigines from different
social class backgrounds, as well as different tribal affiliations.

The backlash against Aborigines, noted by school personnel
in the seventies, following grants for Aborigines for secondary
education and positive discrimination for employment of apprentices,
caused great tension in the town.

In 1978 (that is, about ten years after the admission of Aborigines
to the State school system), there had been a problem of violence
amongst Aborigines in the school.

Different groups theorized differently about how the problem

in the school came to be solved.

According to the Principal of the High School, the problems
had a tribal base and had been solved by action of the ’important
men’ (that is initiated men) declaring that violence was not to
take place in the school precincts.

Aboriginal teacher liaison personnel, on the other hand, attributed
the changes in the school to the employment of Aboriginal adults in

ɪɪhe Principal related how he had become impatient with an excuse
.offered for absenteeism. A student said he had been absent because
his father had been very sick. The Principal did not believe this,
and, on impulse, told the child he would go and see for himself
The father was sick. It eventuated that he was an ’important man’
and interpreted the fact that the Principal came to see him, rather
than sending the counsellor, as a recognition of this fact. On
learning of the problems at the school, the Aboriginal man decreed
that violence was not to take place in the school precincts.

The Principal held that violence ceased from that time.

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