For Cally Jetta, education means empowerment.
The University of Southern Queensland senior lecturer has dedicated her career to understanding the First Nations experience of the school sector.
Her approach to education has always been motivated by a desire to increase opportunities and access for First Nations students through education and to promote genuine understanding and solidarity between First Nations and non-First Nations peoples.
Most recently, she was awarded her PhD for a work that sought to understand the complexity of Aboriginal self-determination within schools, particularly from the perspective of First Nations educators.
Utilizing Indigenous methodologies including storying, yarning and visual elements, Cally’s thesis drew from self-determination, decolonisation and cultural interface theories.
The study has contributed valuable insights into First Nations educators’ understandings of self-determination and the barriers and successes experienced in the school system.
As a former high school teacher, Cally said she wanted to understand if the barriers to self-determination that she experienced were felt by other Aboriginal educators in the same way.
Her thesis was accepted earlier this year and awarded with ‘excellence in HDR research’.
“This PhD was an opportunity to emphasize the importance of self-determination in any responses to Aboriginal challenges, including education,” she said.
“I wanted to provide Aboriginal educators with a voice and the opportunity to explain what self-determination means to them and then provide our shared recommendations to those working in school policy and education.”
Cally is an integral member of University of Southern Queensland’s College for First Nations. She teaches from her home in Western Australian on Noongar Country.
She and her husband have four school-aged sons and Cally hopes that they too will embrace the opportunities that education can afford them.
“I think of education as an opportunity to transform our perceptions, access, opportunities and potential,” she said.
“I am a life-long learner and teacher, it is part of who I am and how I give back to Country and community.”
Cally took on her PhD after already completing a double degree with honours.
“My dear grandpa said to me ‘let education take you as far as it can’,” she said.
“Completing my PhD was a personally and professionally meaningful extension of my own learning and academic education. I feel relieved to be finished, but also proud of my accomplishment and grateful for the new knowledge and skills I gained throughout the process.”
She described education at all its levels as a bridge between communities and cultures.
“Education can help us as First Nations and non-First Nations Australians to come together in the true spirit of mutual understanding, respect and compassion,” she said.
