It’s bad enough when Bruce Pascoe fabricates a phony-baloney “Aboriginal history” — but his alleged fabrications about himself may be even worse.
Let’s not beat around the bush: Dark Emu is garbage. It makes Chariots of the Gods look like rigorous scholarship by comparison. Its fanciful tales of Aborigines supposedly inventing democracy, and farming on a scale beyond even modern Australia, are not just laughable at face value, they’ve been rigorously debunked by actual historians and archaeologists.
It merely serves to prove how degraded our national broadcaster and education bureaucracy are, that they continue to promote Pascoe’s fake history.
What, though, of Pascoe’s claims about himself?
There is Pascoe’s claim, for instance, to be Aboriginal. Genealogists have scoured his family tree and found that his ancestry on all sides traces directly back to Britain. Two of the three Aboriginal groups Pascoe claims descent from have likewise rejected the claim. Despite their rejection, Pascoe insists that he does indeed have Burnurong and Tasmanian ancestry — although he is unable to name even one. Invited by a sympathetic Kerry O’Brien to clear up the matter, Pascoe resorted to what might generously be called “waffle”.
Now, even more, doubts are being raised about Bruce Pascoe — this time, about his academic qualifications.
The Wikipedia article for Pascoe states,
He attended the local state school before completing his secondary education at University High School….Pascoe went on to attend the University of Melbourne, initially studying commerce but then transferring to Melbourne State College. After graduating with a Bachelor of Education, he was posted to a small township near Shepparton [i.e., Numurkah…]. He later taught at Bairnsdale for nine years.
The bibliographical note accompanying the entry for his papers in the National Library of Australia, some of which papers were provided by Pascoe as late as 2008, states,
Bruce Pascoe was born in Richmond, Victoria, on 11 October 1947. After graduating from Melbourne University with a Bachelor of Education, he taught as a secondary teacher and was a Curriculum Development Officer with the Victorian Education Department.
Given Pascoe’s birth date and the course of schooling in Victoria, he would have matriculated in 1965. Rather than the Melbourne State College, which did not open until 1973, Pascoe attended the Secondary Teachers’ College of Victoria. Filmmaker Ivan Gaal met Pascoe at the College in 1970.
Here’s where it gets interesting.
From the late 40s, the Education Department introduced secondary studentships, which provided a living allowance and free tuition for a university degree and a Diploma of Education. From 1957, the Secondary Teachers’ College offered a three-year Trained Secondary Teachers Certificate (TSTC), for studentship holders who had failed at university.
If there is any truth in the Wikipedia claim that Pascoe “transferred” to the College after beginning a Bachelor of Commerce degree at Melbourne University, then he presumably started on the degree on a Victorian Education Department scholarship; failed his first year; then was required by the Department to enrol for a Trained Secondary Teachers Certificate at the College, the alternative being to pay out his scholarship bond and part company with the Department.
Quadrant Online
Pascoe claims to hold a Bachelor of Education — but the Secondary Teacher’s College never issued degrees. Melbourne University, whence Pascoe claims to have graduated, does not and has never offered a Bachelor of Education. Instead, it has offered a post-graduate Diploma of Education and, more recently, a Master of Education.
Pascoe is now employed by his supposed alma mater, as “Enterprise Professor in Indigenous Agriculture”.
Which raises the question: did the University consult its own files to establish Pascoe’s bona fides, as part of the employment process? Did no one notice that his CV claims a degree that the University has never offered?
Potentially falsifying an academic record is no light matter. At this moment, Barry Urban, a former politician, is languishing in a West Australian jail, in part for lying about his academic record in order to join the WA police force.
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