Ict and indigenous education: Emerging challenges and potential solutions

Abstract

Currently Indigenous higher education is embedded within colleges and universities that serve the ideals of Western culture and nation-state interests. Higher education is assimilative for Indigenous students and faculty. At best there is great pressure for Indigenous students and faculty to serve nation-state goals, an assimilation model, or serve both nation-state and Indigenous goals through acquiring and utilizing multicultural skills and knowledges. Indigenous peoples are diverse culturally, politically and have focuses on self-government and territoriality that other ethnic, racial, and minority groups do not. Indigenous nations do not share common cultural and political ground with mainstream institutions, including universities. Higher education should address, support, and welcome the holistic diversity of Indigenous perspectives. The most intellectually open ended way to address the issues and diversity of Indigenous peoples is to recognize that there is a unique Indigenous paradigm that cannot be addressed within the frames of ethnic or minority diversity, civil rights, or human rights. Greater educational inquiry, greater research and intellectual contributions, and greater inclusion of indigenous students and faculty in higher education will result from recognizing and supporting Indigenous perspectives, rights, and associated education needs that address self-government, territory, and cultural autonomy.