Jack Beetson
Executive Director, Literacy for Life Foundation
Bachelor of Education (Adult Education), 1993; Diploma of Adult Education & Community Education, 1989
2022 Recipient of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Alumni Award, and Chancellor's Award for Excellence
Professor Jack Beetson is a proud Ngemba man from Western NSW who given decades of his life in service to Indigenous rights, self-determination, community development, and adult education.
A teacher and lifelong champion for adult education, in 2013 Jack co-founded the Literacy for Life Foundation, an Aboriginal-run charity teaching Aboriginal people to bring literacy to their communities.
LLF’s education program is 100% Indigenous community-lead. Thanks to the unstoppable force that is Jack Beetson and his team at the Foundation, who have already rolled it out across thirteen communities, so far the program has already graduated 300 students, over 60% of whom are women.
Jack Beetson at UTS Alumni Awards. Image by Barnaby Downes.
It was Jack’s own high school experience that showed him what an education experience should not be.
At 28, he gave study another shot, this time at Tranby Aboriginal College.
Around the same time Jack also came to UTS to get a formal teaching qualification. As a UTS student he fought to ensure he and his classmates retained ownership of their Indigenous cultural work, and he served as a member of the UTS Council.
While Jack was studying his UTS degree he was still with Tranby, teaching other Aboriginal adults business studies and Aboriginal cultural studies. Tranby was also where Jack learned how to organise and fight for Indigenous rights.
In the late 1980’s Tranby was the headquarters of the Committee to Defend Black Rights, which brought about the Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody.
Under the tutelage of other great Indigenous teachers and leaders, Jack would later become Tranby’s Executive Director.
Jack Beetson is awarded the UTS Chancellor's Award by UTS Chancellor Catherine Livingstone at UTS Alumni Awards 2022. Image by Barnaby Downes.
Jack’s approach is community-led, collaborative, innovative, and energising.
Over the years he has worked with Local Aboriginal Land Councils to rebuild their governance; he has facilitated Aboriginal-led economic development initiatives, community consultations to ensure government policy reflected Indigenous perspectives, contributed to Aboriginal Education government task forces and advisory councils, and has provided policy advice to government and corporations across Australia.
Outside of Australia Jack has worked with too many organisations to name but enough so that in 1997 he was selected to represent Australia as part of a UNESCO collaboration to co-develop the world’s first Indigenous adult education framework.
He also contributed to the drafting of United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
In 2000, Jack was honoured with a United Nations Unsung Hero Award in 2001 for Dialogue Among Civilizations for his work in Reconciliation.
In 2019 Jack was inducted into the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame.
In 2022 UTS proudly awarded him with the Faculty of Arts Social Sciences award, and the Chancellor's Award.
This award I think it's very humbling.
Whatever I do, you never do it for awards. But I think aknowledgement is important when you put your life into a particular area of work, like I have in terms of Human Rights.
It's been a big part of my life so it does mean a lot.
What I'd like to achieve in the coming years is, I'd love to see the campaign the literacy campaign model that I'm working with rolled out across the country and not just be available to Aboriginal people but to non-aboriginal people as well. Human rights are a funny thing they have no race if your human rights aren't being met or they're being violated it doesn't matter who you are.So I think that's critically important.
I believe that our life is full of defining moments but none of us should be defined by any one moment.
You get so many knockbacks in your life you know. So many people say no, so many people say we can't afford it, it's not in the budget it's not this, it's not that. My answer to that is we can't afford to do nothing. That's the thing we can least afford is not doing anything.
I'm a great believer that if you're not passionate about something step aside and let someone who is passionate about that do it and go and find something you are passionate about. That's the advice I give my kids today. It's the advice I give any young people. You know if you find something you're passionate about you'll automatically be good at it because you're passionate about it and you'll never work a day in your life.
