ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER-LED TRANSFORMATION “What does this current system say about how we value the knowledge, cultures, languages, and histories of the more than 250 Indigenous Nations on this continent?”12 NIYEC wants Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures and perspectives included in the school curriculum and for this to “move beyond an archaeological perspective and to include our fight for human rights, self-determination and land rights.” 13 PHOTO: NIYEC co-founders and directors, Kaytlin Kelly and Nicola Barker at the Education of Our Own Design Workshop in Darwin, 2019 (Mimi Fields) To support this work, in 2020 NIYEC launched the campaign #LearnOurTruth, a youth-led action-oriented campaign focused on three areas – student agency, school leadership and local histories told by locals. As part of the campaign NIYEC is calling on school leaders and educators to take a pledge to build truth-telling into the school culture, ensure school improvement and curriculum plans include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures, support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educators, and listen to First Nations students. That manifests in multiple ways, across a curriculum where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges are not valued, in how schools address racism, and in the few further educational opportunities to learn on Country and/or in community. than 1,000 supporters. Recognising the importance of the social and cultural determinants of health, the network’s members come from many disciplines, including education, health, social work, law, public policy and international development. Most glaringly, it’s also yet to be reflected in Closing the Gap targets that have focused on attendance and retention figures while ignoring cultural obligations and strengths – such as learning of language and caring for Country – that reflect both sophisticated systems of sharing knowledge through millennia and aspirations for many young people. NIYEC engages young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people through strengths-based, action-orientated workshops and online discussions to imagine what the education systems could look like from a position of selfdetermination, and what that should and could mean for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education workforce in Australia. Led by these priorities, in 2015 Hayley organised a National Indigenous Youth Education Advocacy Workshop to establish a network of young mob to share collective experiences and rethink the future of education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Our young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are still having to go into history classes and not be taught their histories, having to do subjects that are not relevant to their lives or do not provide scope for their own knowledges.” Supported by the United Nations Secretary General’s Global Education First Initiative Youth Advocacy Group, the discussions were grounded in the knowledge that First Nations peoples have a right in international law to a self-determined education. From that workshop, Hayley and four Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women from across the continent founded NIYEC. Seven years on, it has a network of more NIYEC says more than a hundred school leaders have taken up the call to date. Hayley McQuire, Co-founder and CEO of the National Indigenous Youth Education Coalition NIYEC’s strategic plan, released last year, declares: “Our people have cared for this continent since time immemorial and have a right to be empowered through an education system that values them for who they are, what they know and what they do.”11 And many more should. “It’s the responsibility of all schools who operate on unceded lands to respect that connection to the past, and how it influences the inheritance of tomorrow,” it says. The plan says that our learning systems hold a mirror up to us as a society, and it asks a critical question: Transforming Power: Voices for Generational Change 25