Book Review: Leading and Managing Indigenous Education in the Postcolonial World

Ma Rhea, Z. (2015). Leading and Managing Indigenous Education in the Postcolonial World. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge. In this book, Ma Rheas calls for profound rethinking of the leadership and management of Indigenous education. The legacy of a colonial education system needs to be disrupted “through both revolutionary and evolutionary processes, involving multiple sites of strategically coordinated action” if the glaring disparities in education achievements between Indigenous and non-indigenous peoples in Australia are to be comprehensively redressed. This book however is not a manifesto, but rather a practical blueprint for change carefully crafted from the experience of a skilled academic and an education practitioner who has ‘walked the walk’ at all levels of Indigenous education in Australia. Ma Rhea also draws from her expertise as a dynamic systems analyst and change manager to systematically prosecute her case, simultaneously dissecting why initiatives fail, how initiatives can afford success, and the pitfalls of reactive decisions and ‘fixes‘ can be avoided. Children are at her heart but the responsibility is squarely placed at all levels of leadership: federal, state and territory; education departments; curriculum bodies; and in schools and universities.