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WALKING IN THE RED DIRT AND THE RED CARPET:
QUALITY EDUCATION IN AUSTRALIA’S FIRST LANGUAGES PROFESSOR TOM CALMA AO Professor Tom Calma AO is Co-Chair of Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation (ALNF), Chancellor of the University of Canberra, National Coordinator Tackling Indigenous Smoking and former Co-Chair of Reconciliation Australia. He was the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission from 2004-2010. Professor Calma, an Aboriginal Elder from the Kungarakan tribal group and the Iwaidja tribal group whose traditional lands are south-west of Darwin and on the Coburg Peninsula in the Northern Territory, is an active advocate for Indigenous education and languages. He has been involved in Indigenous affairs at a local, community, state, national and international level for over 45 years.
NAOMI FILLMORE Naomi Fillmore is the First Languages Coordinator for the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation (ALNF). She has researched, advised, and managed language and education initiatives in a variety of settings, including in Australia, Nepal, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
‘Our culture, our language and our stories; we must hold on to tightly and not let go because these give us strength […] We must keep our language, our stories, our lands and our family connections. These are things that give us power in our land.’ - Makinti Minutjukur, Director, Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Education Committee (PYEC), APY Lands1. In 2019, the world celebrated the United Nations International Year of Indigenous Languages, set to extend into an International Decade from 2022.2 Access to education ‘in and about Indigenous languages’ is a major objective of the international year, recognising that education in Indigenous languages (often described in Australia as First Languages) is a human right and essential to the learning, engagement, and well-being of Indigenous children. It also has a cathartic and healing effect on adults who have been denied the right to practice their language and culture through past government policies.3 International recognition of these facts began much earlier than the UN international year. The Coolangatta Statement on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in Education4 of 1999 asserted that ‘the use of existing Indigenous languages is our right’; and this right is protected under a number of international treaties and agreements to which Australia is a signatory (see Box 1).
