Closing the Gap: Teenager driven to improve educational outcomes of Indigenous Australians
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For Aboriginal teenager Tarni Rigney, looking at the education outcomes for Indigenous Australians is distressing.
"If you look at the literacy and numeracy rates at the moment for Aboriginal children, it's really shocking," she said.
"More money needs to go to education so that children aren't falling behind because education is the basis for later life."
The latest Closing the Gap report found Australia is still failing to meet key targets in Indigenous education, health and employment outcomes.
Ms Rigney, 18, is about to start a Bachelor of Early Childhood Education at the University of South Australia (UniSA) and hopes to be part of a generation that will turn those figures around.
"I want to change the poor schooling outcomes," she said.
"Aboriginal students face a number of challenges and I want to be part of the support system that helps them through those highs and lows."
Teaching is in Ms Rigney's blood.
Her grandmother, Alice Rigney, an elder of the Narungga and Kaurna Nations, was the first Aboriginal female principal in Australia.
"She's left a really inspiring legacy and at the time there wasn't a lot of support for Aboriginal education," Ms Rigney said.
"For her to stand up for the voiceless and educate Aboriginal children was really inspiring and really necessary."
Ms Rigney's father, Professor Lester-Irabinna Rigney, is also a celebrated educator.
While Ms Rigney is following in her family's footsteps, Ms her focus is on the future and improving the self-belief of other Indigenous students.
"There needs to be a lot more support in Indigenous communities for just how to believe in yourself," she said.
"Try to have really good self-belief because that's the most important thing and that's what will push you to succeed.
"There's a lot of discrimination at the moment and that's not helping anybody's self-confidence and belief in themselves.
"To celebrate your culture and be proud of who you are is really important."
Early education keys to retention rates
The number of Indigenous students at UniSA has increased in the past two years, and last year it hired its first Indigenous pro-Vice Chancellor, Professor Irene Watson.
About 350 Indigenous students are enrolled, with the number doubling since 2012.
Professor Watson said the situation across Australia was not good enough.
"There's a long way to go in terms of meeting equitable standards," she said.
"The University of South Australia is heading in the right direction."
Professor Watson, who was South Australia's first Aboriginal lawyer, said discussions about higher education should start in primary school.
"Opportunities and an interest in further education, or even of staying at school and cultivating that interest in learning needs to be resourced at a very early age," she said.
"At the moment I'm looking at ways that we may be able to build the pipeline to a younger demographic.
"Starting from a primary school age and even improving on the great success that we're currently having."
Topics: indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, community-and-society, indigenous-policy, education, university-of-south-australia-5000, adelaide-5000, sa
