Indigenous education is one of the great challenges facing humanity in
the historic quest for a democratic and peaceful future. The 370 million
Indigenous peoples of the world demand that the racist and colonial
wrongs of the past be recti ed and that they stand as equals in
confronting the social, political and cultural problems that surround us
all. Education offers a way forward, whether concerned with the public
good, schooling for all citizens including universal primary education
and expanding secondary education, the education of women regardless of
background, the inclusion of local cultures, literacy and numeracy for
all as a democratic right and the provisionof comprehensiveeducationthat
enables both personal aspiration, cultural satisfaction and economic
pathways. What this means is that all children no matter where they
live, no matter what
theirbackgroundorthecolouroftheirskinshouldexpecttohaveaccesstoeducation
of the highest quality. This does not impose a particular style of
education for local communitiesbut respects that educationaldirections
must be decidedindependently by countries themselves. Within this
general context, there is also something most profound about Indigenous
knowing, of appreciating Indigenous perspectives and applying these
across all knowledge, across all subjects of a curriculum. Rather than
accepting the one often highly conservative and dominant view of
knowledge, teaching and learning for all schools, Indigenous
perspectives offer other insights and means of analysis, re ection and
critique. These can open up elds of creative and critical learning for
all children, including the dispossessed, marginalised and
disenfranchised.
