Alitya (Alice Dorothy) Wallara Rigney , née Richards, (27 November 1942 – 13 May 2017) was an Australian Aboriginal scholar. She was a Kaurna elder and part of the team that revived the Kaurna language.

Life

Rigney was born on the Aboriginal Mission at

Point Pearce Point Pearce, also spelt Point Pierce in the past, is a town in the Australian state of South Australia. The town is located in the Yorke Peninsula Council local government area, north-west of the state capital, Adelaide. At the , Point Pearce h ...

. When she completed primary school, her teacher arranged for her to attend Unley High School in Adelaide as the local high schools would not accept Aboriginal children. She returned to Point Pearce following her schooling and training as a nurse, married and raised her family there. She worked at the local kindergarten, then as a School Support Officer at Maitland Area School. She was eventually registered as a teacher, but for Point Pearce only. She then went to Adelaide and was the only Aboriginal student of 400 at the de Lissa Institute, before 1980 Adelaide Kindergarten Teachers College, renamed for

Lillian Daphne de Lissa Lillian Daphne de Lissa (1885–1967) was an early childhood educator and educational theorist in Adelaide, South Australia and the United Kingdom in the twentieth century. She was head hunted to lead ''Gipsy Hill College'' in South London, a key ...

and now part of the University of South Australia. Once she graduated, she was a teacher at a primary school in the western suburbs of Adelaide. She became the first Aboriginal bureaucrat in the South Australian Department of Education. In the 1980s, she agitated for the creation of what became the Kura Yerlo Aboriginal Centre in Largs Bay and the

Kaurna Plains School Kaurna Plains School is an Aboriginal school in Elizabeth, a northern suburb of Adelaide, South Australia. It includes the teaching of the Kaurna language Kaurna ( or ) is a Pama-Nyungan language historically spoken by the Kaurna peoples ...

in Elizabeth. She became the first female Aboriginal principal of a primary school in Australia when she took up the post of principal at Kaurna Plains. Rigney was awarded a Public Service Medal in 1991. She was awarded an honorary Ph.D. by the University of South Australia in 1998 in recognition of her pioneering contribution to Aboriginal education. In 2000 she was appointed a panel member of the S.A. Guardship Board. Rigney died in Adelaide on 13 May 2017, a day after her husband Lester was buried on their birth country at Point Pearce. Their three children all have roles in education: Lester-Irabinna Rigney is a Professor of Education at UniSA, Eileen Wanganeen is a teacher and education leader and Tracey Ritchie is a principal Aboriginal consultant at the

Department of Education and Child Development The Department for Education of South Australia is a state government department delivering school education throughout the state. Education in Australia at school level is managed by each state, though the Commonwealth government makes a signific ...

. She was posthumously made an

Officer of the Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, on the advice of the Australian Gove ...

in the

2018 Queen's Birthday Honours The 2018 Queen's Birthday Honours are appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. The Birthday Honours are awarded as p ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rigney, Alitya 1942 births 2017 deaths Australian schoolteachers Australian headmistresses Officers of the Order of Australia Recipients of the Public Service Medal (Australia) Kaurna Narungga Indigenous Australian education People from South Australia