Evaluating Ngaramura: An Aboriginal-Led Collaborative Approach to Understanding a Culturally Based Educational Program for Young Aboriginal Students Experiencing Difficulties Within Mainstream Education

Ngaramura is an innovative, Aboriginal-designed, strengths-based education program for Aboriginal young people. This unique program addresses the complex and seemingly entrenched issues of disengagement and disproportionate suspension of Aboriginal students from high schools, tackling challenges faced by students in mainstream school environments that fail to meet their needs. Derived from the Dharawal word meaning ‘see the way’, Ngaramura provides a supportive pathway, assisting young people to re-engage with education through a cultural learning framework. Ngaramura is delivered by the Coomaditchie United Aboriginal Corporation an Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation, in the Illawarra region of New South Wales. Coomaditchie invited our Aboriginal-led research team, Ngarruwan Ngadju (University of Wollongong) to conduct this culturally safe collaborative evaluation. This article locates Ngaramura in a place-based context, in which Aboriginal connection to place is an essential component of successful educational initiatives for Aboriginal youth. The 3-year evaluation (2018–2020) formed part of an Australian Research Council and NSW Health COVID research program. Drawing on an Indigenist research and evaluation methodological approach that centres Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing, the process and outcomes evaluation incorporated cultural protocols, a collaboratively designed program logic model and mixed methods ethnographic data approach. The article provides important the lessons for undertaking culturally safe collaborative evaluation.