The Traditional Owners of this land are those who identify as
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

Sovereignty was never ceded.

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First Nations Education

Jessica Johnston
Last edited: March 4, 2025

For at least 65,000 years, First Nations communities have been successfully educating their young ones through ancestrally perfected ways of learning. And yet in mainstream education systems, First Nations children are too often excluded, exposed to structural racism and set up to fail, leading to a persistent education ‘gap’ that seemingly refuses to close.

This backgrounder traces the history of Western education in so-called Australia as a tool of assimilation and exclusion, looks at the ways in which structural racism and notions of Whiteness continue to pervade education policy and systems, and considers education as a site of First Nations self-determination and resistance. It then turns to the pathways forward for First Nations-led and designed education systems that are truly holistic, culturally responsive and grounded in culture.