April 21 Reserving places for indigenous students

[MsElliott]

Round 2: Tuesday, April 21st 2015 at 7pm

That all educational institutions should reserve places for indigenous students: Negative

Versus Waverley Christian College 1

[isabelleewert]

Here are some of the arguments we have come up with for the negative side:

⦁ Rather than implying students move to a less rural area to study, instead work on improving the quality of education in their communities with more money and more government initiative. Bring education to them.
⦁ Does reserving places for Indigenous people mean that other students are at a disadvantage?? It is a basic human right to education so students shouldn't be disadvantaged because someone else has their place.
⦁ Students want to go to a school of their own accord, not because they are making up the numbers and can just breeze on in!
⦁ Rural community atmosphere should be improved so that going to school seems more appealing and indigenous students have a chance to learn.
⦁ Refugees, migrants and homeless people are also in unfortunate situations so why should Indigenous people get preference.
⦁ 84% of the Aboriginal population resides in rural communities. What good is having reserved places when they don't live in the major cities?
⦁ There would be more teaching jobs if rural schools were improved, less unemployment and less uneducated citizens.
⦁ Students should have to achieve the required minimum to enter educational institutions like all other students have to. It would be quite unfair for them to enter schools because they are Indigenous while other students have to work to make it in.

[MsElliott]

I think you have come up with one really strong argument which is that rural education should be supported and education ought to be brought to the indigenous communities rather than reserving places far from home. That would be a good line of argument for your second speaker. However, for the first speaker, I think you should discuss the SEAS application process which is the Special Entry Access Scheme which has a program that supports disadvantaged students getting into tertiary study: www.vtac.edu.au/who/seas.html

Some of the criteria for these applications include:

* By submitting category 1, you are giving permission for the following information to be passed onto institutions to which you have applied:

Age: will generally be used by institutions that recognise and operate mature age entry schemes
Gender: to identify if you are applying for a course in a male or female under-represented discipline
Language spoken at home and date of arrival to Australia (if applicable)-to identify and operate non-English speaking background consideration
Living and/or school postcode-to identify applicants from a regional or remote area or applicants who will need to move to undertake tertiary study
Recognition as an Indigenous Australian
Current school for school leavers-to identify if you attend one of various under-represented schools identified by institutions under this category-also refer to Category 5 if you are applying to La Trobe University, or Victoria University.

As you can see, "Recognition as an Indigenous Australian" is already catered for.

Now, what is the need to reserve places for the indigenous if there is already a program to cater for them?

Also, other problems with reserving places on top of the SEAS program are:

-what if you have a wealthy indigenous person who has had all the rights and privileges, if not more than a disadvantaged non-indigenous Australian, can they still take their place?
-also, you should research some of the animosity and hard feelings that are already held towards the indigenous receiving support from the government (eg. www.hotheads.com.au/aboriginal.htm or google things like indigenous receive too many benefits) and you will see that there is a lot of tension between the non-indigenous and indigenous because each group have their own claim over what they perceive to be their land and their home. Providing indigenous exclusive benefits will raise unwanted and unneeded tension between the two communities and exacerbate (make worse) the situation when we are already trying to diplomatically build reconciliation between the two communities.

If anything, tertiary places exclusively awarded to the indigenous will do more damage to creating a sense of equality in the same way that people now 'hate' feminists because they believe they are asking 'too much'. It is much better to keep the SEAS scheme the way it is, evaluating people based on disadvantage, with consideration to their indigenous or rural background, rather than obvious special treatment.

I think the first speaker should research both the SEAS program and the tensions that are currently held towards the indigenous. I think the second speaker should go with your argument of bringing education to the indigenous instead to indigenous to the education.

I also think you should generate in this forum, all the oppositions arguments to make sure you have them covered in your own arguments or have rebuttal prepared.

I would like to have a meeting with you all Monday lunch time if possible to hear your speeches and rebut each of you? It really helped when I did it with Jemima last time.

Lets keep the discussion going and post what you have prepared or thought of here on the forum!

[isabelleewert]

Is it alright for me to have just two main paragraphs being the SEAS scheme and what it already does and then the tension that is already held between the two communities?
Some arguments the other team may present are:

⦁So people should miss out on a good education because spaces are being reserved for others? Giving special treatment doesn't 'even the scale' it flips it. So other, less fortunate kids miss out.
⦁They may say that "Indigenous schools are failing." So we should potentially remove students from their communities where they have chosen to live to teach them in cities. Isn't that bordering on what happened in the stolen generation.

These are bordering on the arguments we will use so I am not sure if they are still relevant.

We will continue to think of more potential rebuttals.

[MsElliott]

I had a double period with Merlyn today (I was supervising the tens not on work experience) and as she didn't have work today I gave her the booklets available to help with this debate and asked her to go through the information and post up the highlights here. We also phoned the Deakin University indigenous officer and asked a few key questions to aid Merlyn's speech. This is the outline of what Merlyn is going to do as best as I can remember what she and I discussed (correct me if I'm off-track Merlyn):

As Isabelle said, there are already provisions in place for indigenous students (and these are not just the SEAS program, the universities and TAFEs have a range of support services available for indigenous students)
So the issue is not getting them in, it's getting them to graduate
There is a very low success rate for indigenous students graduating, and this is because of a lack of resources and support, instead they should be aided in getting the technology (eg. internet access, computers) to help them to access the thousands of tertiary courses offered online
Online courses are not place limited in the same way on campus courses are because spaces for 'bottoms on seats' are not required
Currently these courses are too hard for many indigenous, particularly in remote areas, to access because of the lack of technological infrastructure
Providing this infrastructure will give them access to all the skills workshops, consultations, resources, and assistance online course provide. Funding could also go towards jobs such as community education liasons who can visit students in rural areas to assist further
By participating in online degrees, certificates, and diplomas, these students also won't be drawn away from their homes. Statistics show that many people who leave rural areas to study never return as they then settle in metropolitan areas and that's where their skills remain
By encouraging indigenous students to study where they live, these skills, and resources, benefit not just the individual, but the community as well

So Isabelle, I think you should not just focus on SEAS, but ALL the services and opportunities a range of tertiary students offer indigenous students currently to assist them in getting involved in tertiary study. Merlyn and the guy from Deakin spoke about a special program they run where indigenous students travel to the university for short courses a few weeks each year to skill them up. I don't know a lot of details about this, but for you, I would look into the benefits universities and TAFEs offer already, as well as special advantages such as funding and scholarships provided by other organisations and the government, basically arguing that anything further than that will start to stir up trouble with the non-indigenous. Merlyn will then focus on providing resources and online study instead of drawing the students to mostly metropolitan campuses.

The booklets Merlyn has contain some past debates and plans that are very similar, she should be sharing her findings soon.

[isabelleewert]

Thank you, that is very helpful. I will research further the different things universities and TAFEs do on top of the SEAS program. Should I incorporate that into one paragraph and still have the second as the tensions between communities or is that too much to fit in the first one? I will also try and find more about Deakin's program.

[MsElliott]

Isabelle, don't be too concerned about paragraphing, when it comes to speeches the important thing is 'flow'. A written speech may even look like lots of mini paragraphs, one for each little point. As long as it flows and is in a logical order, no-one can 'see' how it's been physically written.

[isabelleewert]

Oh okay, I see know. Thank you I will make sure it flows nicely. Would it be worth mentioning some of the individual programs different universities have? I have found that almost every university has some sort of special entry program for indigenous people and a lot of universities offer special medicine entry pathways for indigenous people.

[isabelleewert]

I have been wondering, are we talking about primary, secondary, and tertiary schools or just tertiary education? In my speech so far I haven't spoken about schools other than Universities.

[isabelleewert]

I have edited the Monash uni paragraph as well as the first paragraph contention:
We know that reserving places for Indigenous people in schools is not the way to help them through their studies! Just because they have a reserved place does not mean they are going to the achieve results, not to mention their self-esteem will be lowered. We should instead be focusing on bringing the education to them by building infrastructure in their communities and changing their mindset on education. They should be gaining places into schools because they deserve them, not to risk creating extra tension between the communities.

Some unis, Monash for one, actually do have some fee free scholarships for disadvantaged Indigenous students, and that is fine. However, we do not believe that all educational institutions should be obliged to reserve 'seats' for students when it is not the right option for the individual or their community as well as being unfair to other students. There is simply no need to reserve places for students where a. they may not be used because we have not helped to build an educational structure in their communities and b. there are already support services ready and waiting to be utilised.

[JACK MILLLER]

Would you please let me know what is the best way to prepare for IGCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE novels and plays?