Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this website may contain images, voices or names of deceased persons.
The MK Turner Report is a landmark report, created by the cultural authority of Utyerre Apanpe network and Children’s Ground. It establishes a plan for a First Nations-led and designed education reform in Australia by privileging an approach entitled Apmerengentyele, the Arrernte concept “world view.”
Apmerengentyele is a sophisticated system of knowledge and practice that underpins an Arrernte person’s world view – (Arrernte is a First Nations language group of Central Australia). While each First Nation has its own language and culture for their own system of knowledge and practice, each one shares knowledge, ways of knowing, values, and a common practice.
In this series, we are exploring the recommendations of the MK Turner Report to consider how they can be implemented. The Report’s final recommendation is to establish the M.K. Turner Institute as a national centre for First Nations knowledge, practice, research, and evaluation in the new First Nations education system.
Dr M.K. Turner OAM was an Arrernte Elder, cultural professor, translator, linguist, artist, author, and human rights champion. She was a strict law woman who never sought power but held power.
M.K. was involved in the development and leadership of Aboriginal organisations across Central Australia. Her passion was the preservation of language and culture. She had over forty years of experience as an interpreter and educator.
Apmerengentyele was four years in the making. Through this process, M.K. translated the complex worldview of her law and culture into this visual representation. It underpins the foundations of learning and life and the recommendations of this Report.
M.K. passed away two weeks before the launch of this report.
“We’ve got our own language and teaching standards in our own ways for our children. Every nation of people has got their own teaching methods and qualifications. We teach by our own knowledge and our own training with our own minds in our own homeland.” Dr M.K. Turner, OAM, Children’s Ground Annual Report 2018
The new M.K. Turner Institute will be responsible for overseeing the research, practice and articulation of First Nation knowledge systems and determining how this is shared within the Australian education, research, and government systems. The Institute’s culturally led research and evaluation will contribute to national and international research and practice in Indigenous education.
As a result of establishing a new First Nations education system, First Nations communities will be able to establish and govern our own schools through First Nations pedagogy and practice based on Apmerengentyele.
First Nations children, their families and communities experience a First Nations education system where cultural safety is prioritised and there are robust standards, practices, and policies. They experience lower levels of structural racism because there is an improved understanding in the Western education, research and government sectors of First Nations knowledge and practice in education.
The MK Turner Report is a landmark report, created by the cultural authority of Utyerre Apanpe network and Children’s Ground. It establishes a plan for a First Nations-led and designed education reform in Australia, privileging an approach entitled Apmerengentyele, the Arrernte concept of ‘world view.’
