First Nations Education at Charles Sturt University is grounded in the ethos of Yindyamarra Winhanganha through the wisdom of respectfully knowing how to live well in a world worth living in. It reflects our institutional commitment to truth-telling, social justice, and relational accountability by ensuring First Nations knowledges, voices, and ways of knowing, being, and doing are built into the fabric of university learning.
Effective First Nations education moves beyond ad-hoc content inclusion or superficial compliance checklists. It equips graduates across every discipline with the critical skills, cultural humility, and professional capability required to practice safely and respectfully alongside First Nations peoples, organisations, and communities.
The Indigenous Cultural Competence Pedagogical Framework (ICCPF) is Charles Sturt University's approved pedagogical matrix for designing, scaffolding, and quality-assuring First Nations curriculum. Under the Indigenous Australian Content in Courses and Subjects Policy, course proposals must align with the ICCPF as part of academic governance and approval through the Indigenous Board of Studies (IBS).
The ICCPF maps the development of Knowledge, Skills, and Application across the following six interconnected curriculum components:
Students explore what culture is, how worldviews and social structures are formed, and how cultural perspectives shape human behaviour, institutions, and communication.
Students engage with the diversity, strength, and continuity of First Nations cultures, sovereign histories, truth-telling, and the ongoing structural impacts of colonisation and government policies.
Students develop critical self-reflexivity, examining their own cultural positioning, assumptions, biases, and privileges, and how these influence their personal and professional viewpoints.
Students investigate their own discipline's history, structural power relations, and institutional practices, identifying how Western disciplinary models have historically impacted—and continue to impact—First Nations peoples.
Students cultivate relational capabilities, active listening, culturally respectful dialogue, and communication strategies necessary to work collaboratively across cultural contexts.
Students apply cultural safety, responsiveness, and anti-oppressive practices directly within their discipline-specific clinical, field, educational, or professional environments.
The ICCPF recognises that cultural competence cannot be achieved in a single module or one-off lecture. The framework provides academic teams with a developmental continuum to intentionally scaffold student learning across the entire duration of a course:
When designing and revising First Nations content across the curriculum, the ICCPF asks academic teams to consider:
Gulaay works alongside Course Directors, Subject Coordinators, and Educational Designers to apply the ICCPF in meaningful, manageable ways by:
For curriculum planning, ICCPF mapping, or course review support, please contact GulaayDLT@csu.edu.au.