While providers of early learning experiences were open to participation by all, they acknowledged the lower participation rate by aboriginal children, e.g., in Playgroups, Toy Library, children’s activities run privately in the community…
Services such as Ampe Kweke, Reconnect and Congress Under 2’s program described their attempts to facilitate access to these types of services for mothers in recent years but their ability to do this well is dependent on resources.
The Report then goes on to explain the different (and sometimes conflicting) views of statistics in relation to the level of Aboriginal youth accessing pre-school and early childhood services. In any event, access to mainstream early childhood services is lower for Aboriginal early childhood aged children.
This reminded me of the motivation behind the Alice Springs Early Childhood Literacy Scholarship (Scholarship). The idea camea about because of the near zero involvement of Aboriginal youth in the Kumon program. As Kumon is an internationally proven learning program provided in addition to the services of primary schools this lack of access is a squandared opportunity for improved literacy for Aboriginal people in Alice Springs. The Scholarship aims to reduce the barriers and increase access to such a high quality literacy program.
The Congress Report referred to access of Aboriginal families to early childhood services and notes:
Consultations with services in the mapping process identified the following barriers to Aboriginal people in accessing early childhood services.
- Mistrust of Government services e.g. the historical background of the role of Child Welfare and the Stolen Generations create feelings of insecurity, fears of removal of children.
Having just read the report I can see how the Scholarship aims to overcome many of these stated barriers. First, it links sponsors of scholarships to fund the Kumon English program. Second, it aims to overcome many of the other noted obstacles (lack of comfort, shame, anxiety about doing the right thing, cross-cultural awareness) by providing direct support through the project coordinator and by working with other support services (e.g. structures within schools) to facilitate the right outcome. This is the ‘whole-of-community’ component of the Scholarship.
Because the Scholarship aims to attract recipients who are from a background where access to the kind of program that is Kumon is limited, and because it requires active family oversight and support, the Scholarship considers the strongest outcome possible. This is the assurance that brings confidence to potential sponsors of a Scholarship.
