Learning Community Centres are an exciting community-based and community-shaped adult education initiative that have emerged in Central Australia over recent years. The Warlpiri Education and Training Trust, in partnership with Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education, established Learning Community Centres in Lajamanu, Willowra, Nyirrpi and are developing a new Centre in Yuendumu — made possible through Warlpiri peoples’ decision to invest significant portions of royalties from the Granites gold mine in education and training. On the Utopia Homelands, the Arlparra Study Centre has now joined the Learning Community Centres group.

In contrast to adult vocational education and training provision focused on competency standards and assessments and based on a mainstream, industry-driven training framework that often does not match the particularities and opportunities available in remote settings, Learning Centres have been designed around community interests and needs. They seek to support meaningful ‘learning’ in many forms: for strengthening cultural identity, for work and for life, and for social and cultural well-being.

This seminar, which emerges from an ongoing research project involving ANU, BIITE and the CLC, will explore the evolution of the Learning Community Centre concept and provide case studies of two centres and the ‘learning’ they facilitate. The presenters will explore the model’s successes and the challenges of adult education provision in the remote context as well as the tensions of meeting the expectations of the Federal Government’s new Remote Jobs and Communities Program (RJCP). Lastly they will situate this approach in the context of international theory and practice on adult learning.

Presented by Inge Kral and Jerry Schwab (Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, ANU), Ann Davis (Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education), Georgie Stewart (Warlpiri Education and Training Trust - Central Land Council), Marlkirdi Rose (Warlpiri Education and Training Trust – Lajamanu), Barbara Martin (Warlpiri Education and Training Trust – Yuendumu) and Valerie Martin (Kurra WETT Directors).