Year 12 can be a stressful experience for any student and for those in remote aboriginal communities isolation, language, and cultural differences can create additional barriers in navigating a western education system. But for the remote community of Gunbalanya hundreds of kilometres from Darwin in west Arnhem land eleven students have celebrated their graduation.
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00:00 Local culture blends with Western ceremonies as a new generation take their first steps
00:07 into the next phase of life. These certificates evidence of their hard work.
00:15 I would like to thank my teachers who have been teaching me at the early age and for
00:28 encouraging me to be where I am now. But Mahalia already knows what's next for
00:34 her, following in her mother's footsteps working with young children.
00:38 Teaching them how to be strong and how to come to school every day.
00:45 And it's not just the students who are proud of how far they've come.
00:51 A really big job to get 11 graduates through here in the bush, so I'm very proud of all
00:56 my staff, families and especially students. The mixture of traditional and Western ways
01:02 is an essential part of Gunbalanya School's ethos.
01:06 They learn both ways to be able to walk in the Ballander world but still take with them
01:11 their culture and still be proud of who they are and where they've come from and their
01:16 language. And it's a journey that begins very early
01:18 on. That is a critical time for children to get
01:25 cognitive learning going and it's a really fantastic time to build that bridge to learning.
01:32 The students here today are one of the largest cohorts of remote NT graduates for 2023.
01:38 And these ceremonies, as well as the learnings of the young ones, show there's a bright future
01:42 ahead.
01:42 [BLANK_AUDIO]