In high school, our teachers used ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and Missisippi Burning to sneer at America’s long standing problems with race, particularly in regards to its large African American population.
But mere decades into Australia’s far smaller African experiment, the elitism, denial and finger- pointing is gone, in place of concerns for real problems African people can bring.
As while the criminality of Australia’s African migrants has been publicly highlightes, crime is not the only area where Africans are falling short.
In fact, African educational engagement is so depressed, that truancy rates are on par with similar problems facing Aboriginals.
Given this minority community was welcomed into Australia: a utopian paradise compared to their homelands, and we have enormously assisted in areas of health and welfare, ‘racism’ cannot be blamed on their shortcomings.
Nor can these issues be broadly attributed to an especially violent past, as educational problems were never observed amongst the Vietnamese community who witnessed equally horrific scenes during the Vietnam war.
It would be likewise shortsighted to argue Africans have had minimal time to properly integrate. As 50 years on from civil rights equality for African Americans, the fact that 13 % of the population commit 50 % of the murders, demonstrates racial issues delve deeper than mere legislative or cultural inclusion.
Some might point to African culture. But given culture is downstream from race, the consequences of low IQ (low IQ individuals are less likely to forgo short term pleasure, for long term success), appears at least partially responsible.
How Australia will approach problems of the African community remains to be seen.
However, without recognising the low average IQ’s of Africans and understanding the consequences, our nation does a disservice to truth and real solutions.
The Australian, by Rebecca Urban, March 6, 2018:
Melbourne schools in suburbs with large populations of African migrants, including the troubled South Sudanese community, are facing high truancy rates similar to those afflicting many indigenous communities, sparking fears of poor educational outcomes and spiralling social problems.
Up to 50 per cent of students enrolled at some schools in Flemington, Tarneit and Sunshine in the city’s west and Dandenong in the east fail to attend at least 90 per cent of school days, data published by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority has revealed.
Education experts believe that 90 per cent attendance is the minimum benchmark for a student to progress in their learning. Victoria’s overall attendance level is 79.5 per cent, meaning one-fifth of students are not attending school consistently.
African community leaders, teachers and social workers have expressed alarm at the high level of school disengagement and were concerned about possible links to the recent spike in crime and anti-social behaviour by young people from South Sudanese backgrounds.
School principal Matthew Shorecross, who runs Sacred Heart School in Fitzroy, which has a large intake of South Sudanese, Ethiopian and Eritrean students from the Atherton Gardens public housing estate, said the secondary school system was failing many migrant and refugee students, particularly boys.
“In saying that, they’re probably disengaged by the time they get there,” Mr Shorecross said. “We … probably haven’t done a good enough job. We need to get better at catering for different learning styles.”
With research suggesting that it can take five to seven years for a child raised in a non-English-speaking home to acquire language skills equivalent to an Australian-born classmate, Mr Shorecross said engagement was crucial in the early years so that “kids don’t drop off the radar in the meantime”. Sacred Heart recorded an attendance level of 81 per cent last year — above the state average — whereas Fitzroy Primary School, which has a similarly disadvantaged demographic, had an attendance level of 70 per cent. Several schools in Dandenong and Pakenham recorded attendance levels of between 60 and 70 per cent, while Sunshine College reported an attendance level of just 59 per cent in term one, dropping to 54 per cent by term three.
In the City of Wyndham, where youth vandalism and anti-social behaviour sparked headlines over summer, Tarneit P-9 College recorded a 72 per cent attendance level and noted its concerns over unexplained absences, particularly in the primary year levels, in the latest annual report. It has since introduced an attendance policy and employed an African community liaison officer.
While each of the schools has large numbers of students with a language background other than English, the data does not provide a breakdown by nationality.
However, according to the census, the Wyndham and Dandenong regions have among the highest number of South Sudanese migrants across the state…