"This is for Dad": First Indigenous professor in School of Education and Social Work

Lynette Riley AO, a Wiradjuri and Gamilaroi woman from Dubbo and Moree, has been promoted to professor at the University of Sydney.

The achievement is the latest step in her remarkable educational journey as the first in her family to complete high school and attend university. She then became a school teacher before carving out a groundbreaking career in higher education from TAFE to University of Sydney.

“This is for Dad,” Professor Riley said. “My parents only went to school until Year Three. In their era, the government had scientific research to prove that Aboriginal people were incapable of undertaking higher forms of education. They only received enough education believed to be sufficient to be good servants or labourers for non-Indigenous Australians. The Aboriginal curriculum focused on manual work. But Dad wanted more for us kids.

“He was always of the opinion that we were going to go through school and get a high school certificate. Our doing it proved that he could have done it if he’d been given the same opportunities. I know he would be proud.”

Professor Riley is the first Indigenous academic to be promoted to professor in the School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney.

She believes she may also be the first Aboriginal person from western New South Wales, including Dubbo, to be promoted to professor.

“For many Aboriginal people, we’re still making history with firsts,” Professor Riley said. “In a lot of communities, people are the first to complete school, go to TAFE or university. My community is so excited; they want to throw a mayoral reception for me.”

Professor Riley’s promotion reflects her academic integrity and excellence in research, and years of teaching experience.

She is Chair of Aboriginal Education and Indigenous Studies in the School of Education and Social Work, and an acclaimed researcher in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights, education, racism and wellbeing.

Professor Lisa Jackson Pulver, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous Strategy and Services) said Professor Riley is an inspiration to her students and fellow academics.

“Lyn Riley is an astounding academic, who has provisioned quality guidance and support for countless Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff and students in the academy. She is an inspiration to us all.”

For young Lynette to attend the public school in Dubbo in 1962, her parents had to apply for a Certificate of Exemption. “This meant we were exempt from being Aboriginal. Once you had one, you weren’t allowed to contact other Aboriginal people, but you could get a job and your kids could go to school,” said Professor Riley, the eldest of six children.

“Some of my cousins’ parents refused to get a Certificate of Exemption, so they had to go to the school on the other side of town and were automatically put into a special class where they were considered backward and incapable of learning.

“It was really the 1967 Referendum that started to create a lot of change and by 1969, when I started high school, things really began to change,” Professor Riley said.

In 1972, the Director General of Education removed public school principals’ right to refuse entry to Aboriginal students based on the local non-Indigenous community’s attitude.

But there was still a lot of racism, she said. “All the Aboriginal kids had to line up at the principal’s office weekly to get checked for head lice, but none of the non-Indigenous kids ever got checked. In dancing classes, nobody would partner with me, so I had to dance on my own.

“In high school, I was the only Aboriginal kid in the senior years. I topped the class in one of the tests, and some students said I must have cheated. I never topped the class again. I did very well in the HSC, but I did it quietly.

“Many of the other students didn't talk to me in Year 11 and 12, which made me more determined to get through school. I thought, you’re not stopping me. I’m one of those people who, if you tell me I can’t do it, I bloody will.”

After high school, Professor Riley studied at Armidale Teachers College with around 200 other students – only four of them Indigenous. She trained to be a primary and infant school teacher but the Department of Education sent her to Moree High School in the town where her mother was born and her grandmother lived.

“I was put in to be a remediation teacher to try and solve problems. I couldn’t really do much because I didn’t understand what was going on or why Aboriginal people were placed in the situations they were in. So, I went back to college and did a graduate diploma in Aboriginal Education.”

As a young teacher, she was asked to join the first Aboriginal Unit in the Department of Education in 1981. “We wrote the first Aboriginal education policy for New South Wales, which was then adopted across Australia.”

Professor Riley went on to develop adult Aboriginal programs that were picked up by TAFE. She set up the Oorala Aboriginal Centre and Aboriginal Studies at University of New England in 1986, and briefly went back to Dubbo to work as a primary school teacher – “the hardest job I’ve ever done. Loved it, but it’s the hardest job I’ve ever done.”

She was campus manager at Dubbo TAFE, and worked as State Director for Aboriginal Education for several years in the Department of Education, before finally moving to the University of Sydney, where she has been inspiring students and colleagues for 18 years.

“Every job I’ve had has been about creating something that didn’t exist before. I like getting things done. I’m more of a behind-the-scenes person, making things happen.”

Professor Riley also raised seven children (four of her own) and now has 14 grandchildren. She has endured several bouts of breast cancer and considers herself a survivor.

When she learnt of her promotion to full professor, she was overcome with emotion. “The first thing I thought of was mum and dad. I still get a bit teary because they couldn’t get an education.

“I thought, ‘There you go, Dad, I did it. There’s your proof.’”

Professor Riley is now dedicated to preparing student teachers to “close the gap” between the educational outcomes of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students across Australia. The 2024 NAPLAN results benchmarking the performance of Australian school students show educational disparity remains entrenched.

First Nations students' results are still far behind in numeracy, reading, writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation.

“We can’t close the gap if we have teachers who are unprepared,” she said. “So, for me, it’s about tightening the way in which we train our teachers.”

In a first for any university in Australia, Professor Riley has created a ground-breaking unit where third-year teaching students focus on Aboriginal education during their eight-week placements in schools. Their assessment task is to create or complete an Aboriginal community and school profile. This involves getting to know their community and school, and understanding their relationship with Aboriginal education. “Aboriginal education has to be done in every school, not just in schools with high Aboriginal student enrolments,” Professor Riley said.

“They then use that information to have a good idea about what’s working and what’s not,” she said. “The same template should be something they can take away and use in any school they go to in the future as teachers.”

Professor Riley said the Department of Education only analysed Aboriginal student data for the first time in 2004. “The system needs to be better, and one way to improve it is to ensure that teachers are better trained. That’s what we’re looking at.”