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This research seeks to contribute to a more equitable higher education experience in Australia through developing understandings about quality in Indigenous teacher education. This investigation is based on the learning journeys shared by three graduate teachers from Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education in the Northern Territory of Australia. The teacher education programs in which the graduates studied have been closely examined in terms of curriculum, as well as enrolments and progressions. The descriptive analysis of this information has told one story about teacher education at Batchelor Institute. This story is one of a strong curriculum, a changing cohort, and significant attrition rates. Through the analysis of the differing stories about teacher education, and with regard to the literature, this study has found that quality in Indigenous teacher education is found in a program that explicitly includes the aim of self-determination, has Indigenous knowledges embedded in the curriculum, and uses relationship-based learning within its delivery.

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The education system, as it relates to very remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia, faces challenges. While considerable resources have been applied to very remote schools, results in terms of enrolments, attendance and learning outcomes have changed little, despite the effort applied. The Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation (CRC-REP) in its Remote Education Systems (RES) project is trying to understand why this might be the case, and also attempting to identify local solutions to the 'problem' of very remote education. The RES project is in the process of building its research program across five remote sites in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia. As the project begins, the researchers involved have begun to consider what are the assumptions behind the 'system' in its current form(s). The article begins with an outline of the context of remote education in Australia within a rapidly changing global environment. However, the purpose of the article is to outline many of the assumptions built into remote education and to ask what the alternatives to these assumptions might be. The authors go on to ask questions about how a remote education system would approach some of the assumptions presented. The assumptions presented are based on a reading of the philosophical bases of education. The questions are designed to prompt a deeper discussion about how the values and worldviews of those living in very remote communities might be taken into consideration and acted upon.

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In Australia, the 'remote education system' presents itself as a simple system where the right inputs, such as quality teachers and leaders will engender the outputs that have been set by the system, such as certain levels of English literacy and numeracy. The system has measures in place, including national testing, to report on its success. For the most part, this system seems to be working quite well. However, this modelling breaks down when the education system of remote Australia is presented. This remote system is presented in much of the literature and in the press, as disadvantaged, under-resourced and underperforming. Reported results indicate that current activities are not bringing the desired outcomes. The so-called mainstream system makes adjustments using its model of input to output, but without success. There is a clear need for change. Just what this change might look like is the focus of this article. Theorising in this space is considered from two positions; the first being the published work of a number of Indigenous Australian educators and leaders writing in this space; the second, a consideration of western theorising using complex adaptive systems. Throughout the article, a metaphor of 'red dirt thinking' is applied as a mechanism to ground the thinking in the lives and lands of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of remote Australia.

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This paper was initiated as part of a project undertaken in Arnhem Land, inspired by a range of conversations with Yolnu women and men who reflected on their experiences as Yolnu educators working in Northern Territory schools, mostly on or near their own country. In the initial stages the conversations were aimed at understanding the ways in which Yolnu people enter, progress and complete an initial teacher education (ITE) qualification. As the project proceeded it became clear that these ways of doing teacher education differed markedly from the individual achievement approach exemplified by the 'attract, develop, recognise and retain' (Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership [AITSL], 2011, p.1) discourses that are to be found in much of the current documentation about ITE. Furthermore, it became apparent quite quickly that the participants in the project knew there to be a substantial body of knowledge that explained the core principles, beliefs and experiences of their Yolnu engagement with teaching and teacher education. However, little of this work seemed to have found its way into contemporary studies about remote teacher education. Nor did it seem to have been worthy of inclusion in a wider body of work on Australian teacher education.

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When people talk about education of remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, the language used is often replete with messages of failure and deficit, of disparity and problems. This language is reflected in statistics that on the surface seem unambiguous in their demonstration of poor outcomes for remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. A range of data support this view, including the National Action Plan-Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) achievement data, school attendance data, Australian Bureau of Statistics Census data and other compilations such as the Productivity Commission’s biennial ‘Overcoming Indigenous disadvantage’ report. These data, briefly summarised in this article, paint a bleak picture of the state of education in remote Australia and are at least in part responsible for a number of government initiatives (state, territory and Commonwealth) designed to ‘close the gap’. For all the programs, policies and initiatives designed to address disadvantage, the results seem to suggest that the progress, as measured in the data, is too slow to make any significant difference to the apparent difference between remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander schools and those in the broader community. [What remains is] a discourse that is replete with illustrations of poor outcomes and failures and does little to acknowledge the richness, diversity and achievement of those living in remote Australia.

The purpose of this article is to challenge the ideas of ‘disadvantage’ and ‘advantage’ as they are constructed in policy and consequently reported in data. It proposes alternative ways of thinking about remote educational disadvantage, based on a reading of relevant literature and the early observations of the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation’s Remote Education Systems project. It is a formative work, designed to promote and frame a deeper discussion with remote education stakeholders. It asks how relative advantage might be defined if the ontologies, axiologies, epistemologies and cosmologies of remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families were more fully taken into account in the education system’s discourse within/of remote schooling. Based on what [the authors] have termed ‘red dirt thinking’ it goes on to ask if and what alternative measures of success could be applied in remote contexts where ways of knowing, being, doing, believing and valuing often differ considerably from what the educational system imposes.

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In this new era in tertiary education in Australia, the opportunity exists not only to meet the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and thus redress low access and participation rates, but also to build a system that privileges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges and ways of learning. To be able to do such a thing would require a shared vision and approach from within the institution and across the academy. In Australia, there is one tertiary education provider with the experience and expertise to be able to develop such an approach - Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education (BIITE). BIITE has been engaged in the post-secondary education of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples for over 40 years, evolving from a small vocational programme to become a dual sector provider with over 2700 students from across Australia (BIITE, 2011, p. 21). BIITE's philosophy of adult education is that of both-ways, which has been built from knowledge shared by Aboriginal peoples in the Northern Territory. The methodology presented in this paper extends the both-ways philosophy into a generative framework that has applicability in the many different contexts of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tertiary education in Australia. It is [the authors'] intention to generate a broader discussion about this opportunity in tertiary education and shift the discourse from inclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to recognising the knowledges and ways of learning of the first peoples of this land as a strong foundation for the entire nation's learning.

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For some time Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have been readily participating in [vocational education and training] VET certificate programs, above rates for non-Indigenous Australians (albeit at lower levels of attainment than non-Indigenous Australians). Relatively high participation rates are not however translating into higher levels of employment. Successive 'Closing the Gap' reports point to a widening gap in employment participation, particularly in remote areas. This suggests that the role of VET certificate courses in improving employability of participants is problematic. Compounding the problem of transition to employment is the problem of attrition. In remote parts of Australia, attrition rates for VET courses are very high, for example certificate I courses have attrition rates of more than 90 per cent. It would appear that on the whole, participants are not getting what is needed from their courses and they are dropping out as a result. However, this is not the case for all courses.

To address these concerns a research project titled Enhancing Training Advantage for Remote Learners funded by [National Centre for Vocational Education Research] NCVER, is examining what makes programs more successful. The project, auspiced by Ninti One Limited with research partners from around Australia, will be conducting five case studies on successful programs in a variety of remote Australian contexts to determine what factors make them work well to achieve better retention and employability for participants. This paper and presentation will report on initial findings of the five case studies. It will also present an analysis of quantitative data from VOCSTATS and the five programs to illustrate the kinds of achievements that are possible in an efficient, and effective VET program for remote learners. Some formative implications from the findings will also be discussed.

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in very remote parts of Australia are increasingly participating in vocational education and training (VET); however, completion rates remain low and employment outcomes are not improving. This project identifies how retention and completion can be improved and what other indicators of success are important outcomes of training in remote communities.

Using a case study approach to investigate five unique training programs in remote areas of Australia, the report finds a that range of factors contribute to retention, including: trainer qualities and characteristics of delivery; family, personal, community and cultural factors; training coordination and support; supportive relationships with other students; local community ownership of training; and training that is connected to culture and local knowledge.

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