Planning for quality learning in maths must take culture, language, attendance and core mathematical understanding into consideration to help Indigenous learners succeed, according to a paper presented at the ACER annual conference.

Griffith University Professor of Education, Robyn Jorgenson, told conference delegates on 16 August that Indigenous students may have gaps in their mathematical understanding, lower attendance rates, culture and languages that are significantly different from that of mainstream schools.

“Teachers need to develop skills that will enable them to learn to plan and adapt to these challenges,” Jorgenson said.

Professor Jorgenson will point to statistics that show attendance rates for Indigenous secondary school students decline as the level of remoteness increases. This may be attributed to the fact that in many remote areas, cultural activities take priority over schooling and result in substantive periods of missed school.

“Never sure if there will be one or two students or 20 students, teachers are required to be professional and prepare as if there will be a full contingent of students attending,” Professor Jorgenson said.

According to Professor Jorgenson, the mathematical understanding of Indigenous students in remote communities is further complicated by the limited need for number and text.

“Many remote Indigenous students do not know their age or birthday; few have phones in the home; streets are not named or numbered; there is no need for large numbers.”

Jorgenson said the teaching force in remote areas is predominantly early career teachers who have had little or no exposure to remote education, to working with Indigenous students and communities and to teaching as a profession, which can contribute to high turnover rates and difficulties in retaining teachers in remote areas.

“Beginning and established teachers need to be able to develop innovative models of planning for diversity in learning needs and demands of remote education,” Professor Jorgenson said.

“Working within the existing dominant concepts will not produce the outcomes required for successful Indigenous education.”

Professor Jorgensen has worked in the area of equity in mathematics education for more than two decades. Her work explores how the social, political and cultural contexts contribute to the exclusion of some students as they come to learn school mathematics. The particular foci of her work have been in the areas of social class, geographical location (rural and remote) and Indigenous contexts and learners. She recently took leave from the university sector to work with Anangu communities in Central Australia. The immersion in the lived worlds of remote Aboriginal education has provided key insights into the delivery of Western education in remote Australia.

Professor Jorgensen’s conference paper, Issues of social equity in access and success in mathematics learning for indigenous students, and presentation slides are available from the ACER research repository.

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