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In the totally Aboriginal society at Strelley esteem comes
from the worth of the person. Here too, status is located in
V
educational background. The individual is closely watched,
certain talents recognised, and a long, ongoing process of
education undertaken to fit him for a chosen role, for example,
of a person as a leader in the Law, a role occupied only by a
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person educated to a high degree.
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The problem for the urban people becomes one of establishing
conditions where leaders can emerge, leaders who are not separated
from their people by education, but on the contrary whose education,
like that of the people at Strelley, contexts them back .into
the group.
The research findings show that Aboriginal students within
school structures, both at Port Augusta and Adelaide, have a
positive view of the self, and theorize,at the rudimentary level,
positively about their ’world’.
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For students, the question becomes one of how these positive
views held by Aborigines in the school situation can be maintained
after students leave the supportive structures of the school,
and how such people can take up leadership roles.
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A small stream of Aboriginal teachers is beginning to graduate
from the Torrens A.T.E.P. programme. Aboriginal people are graduating
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from the S.A.I.T. programme.
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The need is to take steps to see that the able Aboriginal
students in schools do not drop out, but proceed to matriculation
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and enter tertiary education programmes through ’normal' entry
requirements, not a 'special' entry, that labels people as 'handicapped'.
The education of the able must be such that, as at Strelley, the
educated are not separated from the rest of Aboriginal people by
the process of education, but, in fact, education prepares them for
leadership roles.