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UTS program opens doors to digital Dreamtime for indigenous students

Peter Davidson, Information Age

15/10/2005 06:31:22

Indigenous Australians' innate sense for story telling has yielded uniquely high competency in Web design, according to University of Technology, Sydney academic Stephen Grant.

Their culture of information management without a written language gives Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders a head start in developing logical information streams, he says, borne out by their success in UTS's program to give indigenes a grounding in ICT as a career precursor.

Begun three years ago, the program has brought 32 students to Sydney from mostly outback Australia in two intakes, with some going on immediately to technical and vendor certification courses.

Called IPIT (indigenous Participation in IT), the program grew out of an ambition to create opportunities for native Australians, particularly in remote areas, to gain IT skills to improve their career prospects and to bolster ICT student intakes at UTS generally.

UTS's IT Faculty worked with the university's Jumbunna Research Unit to gauge the level of interest among indigenous Australians for IT, whether the few that started courses finished, and what was needed to encourage them into IT careers.

"We found that while some, mostly from urban areas, started a course in computing, they rapidly fell by the wayside with only a handful going onto to complete degrees or other significant qualification," says Grant, who has been involved with IPIT from its outset.

"Health and education have been prime academic choices among these people for years, with law and business also attracting successful students - but not IT. There was interest and some knowledge of the Internet and e-commerce, but generally, they just don't know what IT is and does, and the broad range of career options it offers.

"Degrees are obviously important, but there is a wide range of qualifications in IT which will get people into good careers, particularly with skills being in such short supply."

The 2002 research study recommended the development of tailored courses and support resources as part of a five-year pilot program.

But first find your students . . .

Grant and IPIT project manager Ray Lesley knew they had some missionary work to do and having established a program which would offer a basic introduction to computing, an assessment regime and career counselling began their awareness and recruitment effort.

"We felt we had to start at the beginning with computer technology, impart the basics of information systems, programming, Internet technologies and Web design, assess how the students coped and whether individuals should go onto higher study, or find a career in some area where their fundamental IT skills would give them a leg-up.

"It meant convincing people that there is a bit more to IT than MS Word, and that with a properly developed computing foundation, doors would be opened and further personal development an achievable prospect."

As a Wiradjuri Aborigine hailing from west of Dubbo where NSW ends, Grant knew that there were cultural considerations to meet if he was to bring others in from remote areas.

"We publicised what we were doing in the Koori Mail which goes all over Australia, and took in the whole country as our catchment. In the meantime, I travelled to as many communities as I could, including Western Australia, to speak to people about the program and to get as many as possible on side.

"It's not as easy as just walking in and saying 'wow, have we got a program for you' - one must be invited, go through the cultural niceties and engender traditional trust. Once that's done, things can move ahead."

And if that meant sitting in the dust by the side of the road outside some distant community until someone made passing contact, perhaps after one or two days, "then that's what I did - it's our way of things".

Mounting the IT soapbox Otherwise it was a matter of joining e-mail groups to proselytise, getting invitations to speak at community and common interest gatherings, and generally finding a soapbox where possible. He stresses that he was part of a larger effort with the backing of the university and other agencies.

Much of his evangelising was in his own time, taking him across the country and to Thursday Island in the north.

"I'm passionate about IT, and want people to understand that it's not nerdy nor entrapment by monitor - it's the entry to a wide range of business and social activity and touches everything in life. It offers wonderful challenges with a special work culture - and you can do it anywhere."

The enthusiasm contagion worked: the first course was run last year and another in this; two are scheduled for 2006 over summer and semester breaks.

Students spend two weeks in intensive tuition, accommodated near UTS under the IPIT program with travel covered by Centrelink.

Coursework in computing fundamentals gives participants a head start in the CompTIA A+ hardware and software certification, networking is done in .Net and the programming course requires students to write and compile programs in specifically tasked assignments.

But it is in the html-based Web design that students shine: "Indigenous people know how to navigate through information; it is basic to their culture to pass on knowledge using a variety of symbols and abstract ideas rather than written language, and the result is designs which are constructed to give users easy paths to data.

"In some ways it's their 'digital Dreamtime' but by any measure, they show a practical aptitude beyond the convoluted designs which afflict many Web sites to make them loaded with lockouts and user frustration."

At the end of a course, individuals are assessed and counselled on appropriate paths to personal development, whether university, TAFE, vendor-specific certification or general tuition to support careers in business.

Because students come from all over Australia, a comprehensive assessment report is sent to tertiary or other institutions nearest to where they live.

"We liaise with a number of institutions also active in indigenous development to make entry into further study as practicable as possible."

So far, there has been a 50:50 gender balance in student intakes. "It's just coincidence, but very satisfying for us to see this balance. And because we have mature-age people as well as youngsters, teaching environments are helped by the respect given to elders."

Grant's own path to ICT is a model. Early access to Microbee and Apple II at school came to the foreground after moving to Blacktown in Sydney's western suburbs to become a fitter and turner for NSW State Rail, then moving through mechanical engineering and finally an engineering degree.

"It was a time of PCs being used just for clerical work and I got involved in basic networking by running co-ax and later getting into Novell 3.x networking. It was during the development of the Tangara project to improve on the red rattlers, and networking grew out of not having to walk for miles around the workshops to get information."

A chance opportunity to tutor in engineering at UTS ignited a spark for teaching to change his career path. Nowadays he lectures in Cisco-based networking when he's not immersed, with his UTS colleagues, in introducing his people to new opportunities through ICT.