Trends in indigenous educational participation and attainment, 1986-96

This paper provides a summary and overview of indigenous people within the Australian education system. A cohort analysis of changes in educational participation and the level and type of educational qualification over the last three censuses for the indigenous and non-indigenous populations is presented. The main finding is that although there have been some absolute improvements in indigenous educational outcomes over the period 1986 to 1996, relative to the non-indigenous there have been little if any real gains. The lack of improvement relative to the non-indigenous population occurs not only in the proportion of the population with post-secondary qualifications, but also in the proportion of indigenous teenagers staging at school. By any measure, the indigenous population remains severely disadvantaged. Another finding is that, for younger age groups, the non-indigenous population has a higher participation rate in post-secondary education than the indigenous population. This situatior is reversed for older age groups.