Professor Jack Beetson sitting in front of a window wearing a black hat with a purple business shirt and a black suit jacket. He is smiling and looking at the camera.

Bachelor of Education (Adult Education), 1993; Diploma of Adult Education & Community Education, 1989
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Award and Chancellor's Award for Excellence

Professor Jack Beetson has dedicated his life to Aboriginal rights advancement, with a focus on dramatically improving literacy rates for First Nations adults. A proud Ngemba man from Western NSW, Beetson strongly believes ending intergenerational illiteracy in Indigenous communities starts with empowering adults.

To accomplish this mission, Professor Beetson helped found the Literacy for Life Foundation in 2013. As Executive Director, he fights for funding so the Aboriginal-led charity can continue its vital work. Hundreds have graduated from the foundation’s programs – a testament to Beetson’s real-world impact. 

After an interrupted high school experience, Beetson returned to learning at age 28 at Tranby Aboriginal College. His unexpected move into teaching there cemented his belief in education’s power to create opportunities. Beetson would later become the Executive Director of Tranby.

Seeking official teaching qualification, Beetson enrolled at UTS in 1986. He and his classmates fought to ensure they remained owners of their Indigenous cultural work – an effort encouraged by their teachers. This willingness to challenge norms, fostered during his time at UTS, has remained a constant in Beetson’s work.

Spurred by the steadfast belief that learning is a fundamental human right, Beetson has worked tirelessly on a wide range of initiatives and programs since. As a consultant at Beetson & Associates, he’s advised some of the biggest governmental and corporate organisations in the country. He also spent time as a member of the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) and was on the UTS University Council.

But Beetson’s influence expands outside Australia. In 1997, he represented the country at UNESCO’s CONFINTEA V conference in Hamburg, helping develop the organisation’s first Indigenous adult education framework. He was honoured with a United Nations Unsung Hero Award in 2001 for Dialogue Among Civilizations – one of 12 winners that year. And in 2019 he was inducted into the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame.

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Transcript

This award, I think it's very humbling. Whatever I do, you never do it for awards, but I think acknowledgement 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 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. 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. 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.

"The key to improving the next generation’s literacy rate is having literate adults to set a good example. It’s about making community-wide changes – taking them from low literacy to ones that value learning."