The Cuban ‘Yes, I Can’ adult literacy campaign in Aboriginal Australia: An alternative to commodified education.

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the implementation of the Cuban ‘Yes, I Can’ adult literacy campaign in Indigenous Australian communities in north west New South Wales (NSW). This thesis examines the interplay between empowerment, disempowerment and commodification in education in Australia in order to assess what new elements the Cuban ‘Yes, I Can’ adult literacy campaign has brought to the education of Indigenous Australians. In doing so, this thesis has considered why and how the Cuban approach to education is fundamentally different to the Australian approach and whether or not the Cuban approach is more appropriate for responding to Indigenous disempowerment in Australia. The rise of neoliberalism in the early 1980s has sparked the increased presence of commodification of social services in Australia, including education. This thesis focuses on the commodification of social services, including education, which has been described as a process consisting of three elements. These three elements include marketisation, competition, and a new perceived use value of the social service. The commodification of education in Australia has informed and transformed the educational ethos used by successive Australian governments when trying to ameliorate Indigenous disadvantage. The Cuban educational ethos is guided by the work of José Martí, Fidel Castro and Paulo Freire, and is also guided by three key principles, which are solidarity, universalism and participatory empowerment. Since the beginning of its revolution in 1959, Cuba has based its approach to education on these principles and the work of these prominent figures. Notably, Cuba implemented a national mass literacy campaign in 1961, in which it eradicated illiteracy in Cuba within a year. This thesis suggests that the 'Yes, I Can' campaign has been able to offer an alternative approach to addressing Indigenous disempowerment in Australia because it represents a less commodified, more empowering approach to education. The ‘Yes, I Can’ campaign model mobilises entire communities in order to develop an enduring culture of learning in each hosting community. This thesis contributes an analysis of the differences in educational approach between Australia and Cuba, which are reflected in the relative success of ‘Yes, I Can’ in raising literacy in rural and remote Indigenous communities in NSW.