Alternative VET pathways to indigenous development: Review of research

This paper reports on a research project which set out to analyse recent research and policy documents on indigenous peoples' development needs and aspirations, a term used to encompass the full range of issues and programs sometimes also called 'Indigenous Affairs'. The research aimed to assess the extent to which current developments in vocational education and training (VET) research and policy were sufficiently informed by this separate but related body of literature. A particular focus was the work of indigenous community-controlled organisations, and the research methodology involved close collaboration with the directors of the Federation of Independent Aboriginal Education Providers (FIAEP).

The paper argues that current policy settings and research on the educational needs of indigenous Australians have been overly influenced by human capital theory and economic rationalist policy. An historical analysis of the causes of indigenous unemployment and underdevelopment suggests the need for an alternative approach to VET research and provision for indigenous communities and the development of alternative pathways. Aboriginal poverty, the paper finds, is due not to peoples' deficits in so-called 'human capital', but to the lack of public or private sector support for alternative indigenous forms of economic and social organisation. Education and training programs should therefore be provided to communities to enable those of their members who wish to do so to raise their living standards in line with their own communities' development aspirations, rather than always expecting people to move off their own country into 'mainstream' urban-based private and public labour markets. The paper concludes that independent Aboriginal community-controlled organisations play a special role in facilitating Aboriginal peoples' social and economic development objectives, and that there is a need for national VET policies and research to be refocussed on providing greater support to these organisations, rather than pursuing more narrowly-defined notions of access and equity.