A very warm welcome to the website for the World Indigenous Peoples Conference: Education 2008!

 

Preparations are well underway for what promises to be a very special cultural and learning event.

 

The World Indigenous Peoples Conference: Education (WIPC:E) is a triennial conference of international significance that attracts peoples from around the globe to celebrate and share diverse cultures, traditions and knowledge with a focus on world Indigenous education. The purpose of WIPC:E is to provide a forum to come together, share and learn and promote best practice in Indigenous education policies, programs and practice.

 

To be held on the traditional lands of the Kulin Nation, Melbourne, Australia from 7th - 11th December 2008, WIPC:E 2008 will be a celebration of our diverse cultures, traditions and knowledge. It will provide us with the opportunity to showcase our efforts to provide educational experiences suitable to our individual and unique communities and will be a time to rejoice in our strengths and capacity to uphold our traditions and knowledge systems. It will also be a chance to consider how we, as Indigenous people, would like to see education shaped into the future to meet our needs. It is Australia’s Indigenous peoples’ vision that WIPC:E 2008 will be solidly embedded in community knowledge.

 

WIPC:E 2008 has the potential to impact positively on the educational outcomes and lives of Indigenous people across the planet. Formal education provides us with a broad set of options to shape our own futures and with tools to tell our own stories to the wider community; our challenge is to balance the learnings from formal systems within our own traditions. WIPC:E 2008 hopes to explore some of the questions raised by living within competing knowledge systems and look beyond the horizon where complementary knowledge can be used to shape our own futures.

 

The Victorian Aboriginal Education Association Inc is proud to be hosting this prestigious event. We look forward to welcoming you to our beautiful country and making your time in Melbourne an educative and memorable experience.

 

Geraldine Atkinson President VAEAI

Dr. Mark Rose Chair – Knowledge Committee WIPC:E 2008