Cultural Competency

School completion rates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students are well below the rates for non-Indigenous students. The target of halving the gap by 2020 in Year 12 (or equivalent) attainment rates between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students is a major national challenge. (Helme & Lamb 2011) In order to close this gap, I definitely find the capabilities approach relevant to the context of education. Using the Capabilities include a person’s education, their health, their job status, their income, their security, and so forth.

The wellbeing of a community can then be defined to be the aggregate of the capabilities of its members. Hence, a community is considered as economically viable when “its economy produces an acceptable

(They didn’t learn about their own culture and were not allowed to speak their language), Disengaged teachers and finally, Lack of full-time teachers.

Another major problem this community is linked to culture and they need to be equipped with this competence to acquire for higher education or employment opportunities. Cultural competency is the ability to work effectively across cultures. For individuals, it is an approach to learning, communicating and working respectfully with people different from themselves. The emphasis is on enhancing general awareness and knowledge and introducing foundational skills through a continuing education experience.

One of the most important barriers, with respect to education, to be thought about is Australian Languages, as “Language is a key marker of membership of an ethnic group.” Language allows communication of values and beliefs of a particular culture and allows participation in family and community life. Language is considered to be a greater barrier in achieving the literacy skills. For example, in Australia, there are approximately 250 Indigenous languages with 500