Learning in Glebe
Students
Set up as an Aboriginal Adult Education Co-operative, the students who came to Tranby were all adults and were all Indigenous. Only in 1998 and 1999 did Tranby run two classes for non-Indigenous students, some of them Tranby staff, in Applied Aboriginal Studies run by Tranby’s Indigenous teachers.
Students came from across Australia, including the Torres Strait and Western Australia. Some went on to higher education, some gained the promotions they wanted in the public service, and many people went back to their communities feeling more confident in taking up community organisation responsibilities.
Map
Tranby enrolled students from across Australia. You can learn how many students came from each state in any year by using this map.
Islanders + mainlanders
Studying at Tranby was often the first time that people from mainland areas had met people from the Torres Strait or that people from eastern states had met those from Central or Western Australia.
Memories
People who were students over the years 1980 to 2000 have been interviewed about what they remember from that experience. Here are the main themes.
“People went back home and for the first time they could go through the organisation’s accounts book. Before that, the accountants had all the say. But when the students left Tranby, they would go back home and then they could dictate where the money was spent. So, they were activists, but rather than taking up the gun, they took up the pen! It was an incredibly brilliant move I thought. ”