Abstract
The Cape York Aboriginal Australian Academy (CYAAA) is a partnership between the Queensland Department of Education and Training (DET) and Good to Great Schools Australia (GGSA). The CYAAA has operated in the remote Queensland communities of Coen, Aurukun and Hope Vale. While Aurukun is no longer a campus, the CYAAA continues to operate at Coen and Hope Vale, where it uses Direct Instruction (DI), a standardised pedagogical and curriculum program. This chapter addresses the questions: What is the nature of the CYAAA reform? How has its implementation played out? What is the evidence of its success/failure? What conclusions should be drawn from the CYAAA experience? All of these questions have had significant relevance to literacy education in the three communities discussed here. Because the CYAAA is a high-profile, contested reform that embodies a particular approach to remote Indigenous education, these questions are important, not only to the communities involved but in considerations concerning literacy education for Indigenous communities in general.
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Notes
- 1.
Technically the partner is “The Cape York Academy“, a registered business name of the GGSA.
- 2.
Pearson has been described as “undoubtedly the most influential person in Indigenous policy making in Australia today” (Altman 2011). Establishment of the CYAAA predates establishment of GGSA. It was originally a project of Cape York Partnerships (CYP), an Indigenous policy reform and leadership organisation also headed by Noel Pearson. While the CYAAA is its flagship program, GGSA also supports “40 schools in rural and remote communities across Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland” (GGSA 2017a, p. 3).
- 3.
Generic explicit instruction and various specific approaches that are informed by its principles are also sometimes referred to as “direct instruction” (as, e.g. in Rowe 2006). As Ryder et al. (2006, p. 181) comment, “DI … is confused often with the more general approach to classroom instruction referred to as direct or teacher-directed instruction”. Detailed information on DI as promoted by NIFDI is available on that organisation’s website: https://www.nifdi.org/
- 4.
That is, it ignores the “recognitive” dimensions of teaching marginalised groups.
- 5.
Delpit makes specific reference to “Distar” (Direct Instruction System for Teaching Arithmetic and Reading), which is an earlier version of DI. See Delpit, pp. 27–28, for her analysis of how Distar provides a clarity about discursive conventions lacking in at least some “progressive” programs. Delpit’s position is not that of unqualified support for explicit instruction but for a mix of instructional strategies.
- 6.
It can also be noted that, far from discouraging explicit approaches, another model of explicit instruction is mandated for all state schools in the Far North Queensland Region.
- 7.
The degree to which the My School data captures all expenditure is uncertain.
- 8.
The number of domains has expanded to six, with the addition of the “childhood” “civics” and “community” domains (GGSA 2017b).
- 9.
A more detailed discussion of the developments in Aurukun in 2016 is provided in McCollow 2016. The DET report did not examine the other two CYAAA campuses.
- 10.
The issue of whether the CYAAA should provide secondary education at Aurukun will not be considered in this paper.
- 11.
Dow (2011, p. 59) expressed similar concerns in relation to Coen.
- 12.
Though enrolment rates were trending upwards prior to 2010
- 13.
NAPLAN also tests “spelling” and “grammar and punctuation”. The CYAAA performed “above” similar schools in Year 3 grammar and punctuation, 2014, and Year 3 spelling, 2016. The CYAAA performed “substantially above” similar schools in Year 5 spelling, 2014, and Year 3 grammar and punctuation, 2016.
- 14.
Examination of data relating to these wider aims is important but beyond the scope of the present study.
- 15.
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I acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which the CYAAA operates. I also acknowledge the helpful comments from anonymous reviewers of the drafts of this chapter and the patience of the editors.
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McCollow, J. (2019). A Case Study of Controversy: The Cape York Aboriginal Australian Academy. In: Rennie, J., Harper, H. (eds) Literacy Education and Indigenous Australians. Language Policy, vol 19. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8629-9_14
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