The Aboriginal Community College

Abstract

The Aboriginal Community College was establsihed within Torrens C.A.E. as a direct result of a repeated request from the Adelaide and wider South Australian Aboriginal community for adult education. Several years of negotiations and planning culminated in the establishment of the College of Aboriginal Education which accepted the first intake of students in 1973. Thus, the College was designed to serve the perceived needs of the Aboriginal community. It did not observe and analyse the community and then dictate courses and structures which it decided the community ought to have or “needed”. Community needs were stipulated by the community, and the prime understanding was that the voice of the community should guide the College’s operations both through representation on the Management Committee and through internal individual control of learning programs. The College, then, was to cater for the changing perceived needs of the Aboriginal community through individually structured learning areas and processes. In 1975 the College was re-sited in its present premises at 72 Brougham Place, North Adelaide.