Christian Aboriginal Parent Directed School Wongutha
School in Esperance

He purchased the land below a freehold title. He had a vision to establish an agricultural school for Aboriginal post inferior students in the Esperance area. The land at Gibson was cleared, buildings established, and a course in agriculture for post lesser students initiated. There were two workers’ hostels established for Aboriginal men at Esperance and Condingup, and farmers sought after exWongutha students as farm workers. The Wongutha curriculum also included training in Christian principles and leadership, and students traveled from all over Australia to attend the course. As the demand for farm workers declined Wongutha moved into pretrade courses and continued with these courses into the slow 1980’s, when funding and staffing difficulties saw a decline in programs offered. Many Aboriginal leaders emerged from Wongutha over the years and the program made a important impact on Aboriginal Education, particularly in the sixties and seventies. They felt that the standard of education that they had achieved was far better than what their own children and grandchildren were achieving, and they desired education that was sympathetic to the needs of Aboriginal students, with a Christian basis, and modeled on the Mt Margaret school. This group of Aboriginal people invited local non Aboriginal supporters to be involved and formed the founding Board which met during 1980. From its inception the school offered boarding accommodation for secondary students who traveled from the NT, Queensland, and all parts of Western Australia to attend the school. In 198081 the new Non Government school movement was just first to gather momentum and the desire to establish the school was a heroic move into relatively uncharted waters. It was a steep learning curve for the new Board who sometimes had to learn from mistakes. This school offered preprimary to year seven. Over time the school gained recognition as playing an crucial role in Aboriginal Education in Western Australia. The CAPS Board took on the excess responsibility of the Wongutha program in 1990 and the whole property in 1993. CAPS Board members perceived that there existed a gap in the educational market deposit for Aboriginal students. They described the program at Wongutha CAPS as Vocationally Oriented and preempted the fresh wave of VET courses in schools. In 1990 Wongutha CAPS catered for 12 male students and the popularity of the course grew quickly, with a girls’ hostel commencing in 1993 and the numbers grew.