News

Indigenous worse off, but gap closes

Thu March 24, 2011 3:27am

A NEW report has found non-indigenous Australians still are far better off, despite gains in education outcomes among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people .

The Australian Bureau of Statistics released social trends reports yesterday, including: Education and Indigenous Wellbeing. They found 37 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, aged 18 years and more, had attained a minimum of Year 12 or a skilled vocational qualification in 2008 - more than double the rate in 1994. The report said it long had been recognised there was a strong correlation between educational attainment and social wellbeing. "As a result, education has been a major focus in the strategy to close the (life expectancy) gap between the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-indigenous populations," it said. The report found 92 per cent of non-indigenous adults in 2008 had attained at least Year 10 or basic vocational qualifications, compared with 71 per cent among indigenous adults. Non-indigenous people were more than four times as likely to have attained a bachelor degree or higher. Attainment of higher levels of education was more common among Aboriginal adults in major cities than those in regional and remote areas. "This may be due to lack of access to higher education in remote areas," the report said. The report said indigenous adults with a university degree were equally likely as non-indigenous adults with the same attainment to be working. Among adults with Year 12, the unemployment rate for indigenous adults was 10.4 per cent compared with 3.6 per cent among non-indigenous adults. s"While nationally, indigenous adults are around half-as-likely to be in full-time employment as non-indigenous adults, as educational attainment increases, the difference between the employment outcomes reduces," the ABS report said, adding that education alone would not bridge the gap in labour market outcomes between the two groups. "The availability of job and work opportunities by location is also likely to be influencing differences. "Improving outcomes for indigenous people requires a multi-faceted approach including several areas of social wellbeing, with improvements in one area also reliant on improvements in others." The report said people with lower education levels were more likely to engage in risky behaviour such as smoking and binge drinking, but pointed out that social factors were not solely influenced by education. "People with higher levels of education were less likely to live in overcrowded dwellings, and more likely to live in a dwelling owned by someone in the household. "People with higher levels of educational attainment are less likely to have been arrested in the last five years than those with lower levels of educational attainment." The National Education Agreement aims to have 90 per cent of all young people, by 2015, gaining Year 12 or a Certificate II qualification.

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