Despite recent developments in Aboriginal education very few Aboriginal high school students in Queensland are in academic courses that will enable them to matriculate with the possibility of entering into tertiary institutions. Instead, the majority of Aboriginal students are in lower level industrial and commercial courses and consequently leave school ill-equipped to enter into a competitive job market. Of those students who do find employment, few are in jobs commensurate with their ability.

Educationalists such as McConnochie (1973) have pointed out that the failure of Aboriginals to succeed at school is primarily a result of factors associated with our social institutions, particularly the schools, rather than with the Aboriginal child himself. McConnochie suggests that our institutions tend to debase the black child’s concept of himself and the group with whom he identifies, and it is the child’s consequent lack of self-esteem that contributes significantly to his low vocational aspirations and academic achievement. However, low vocational aspirations and achievement themselves interact, reinforcing the child’s negative self-concept and he becomes caught up in a self-sustaining cycle of increasing school failure and worthlessness.