Aboriginal (these days Indigenous) Education has been examined from so many angles over so many years and in so many ways, that there is really nothing left to examine that hasn’t been examined before. Educationists have developed plans built in plans that have grown from plans.

If it only took plans, Indigenous Education would be the most enriched and most successful elements of all branches of Education bar none.

It is what happens to plans after the research is done and the reports are written. Educators make whoopee about the research and its findings for two days. Then the report is shelved and any planning is archived, generally before it is trialled.

It’s juxtapositional that for all the attention paid to Indigenous Education, everyone seems happy to skirt the major issue and key impediment to student progress. The over-arching deficit is that school attendance has always been treated as optional. Unless and until school attendance becomes obligatory in action and not just a stated need, student outcomes will not improve.