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The number of Indigenous people enrolling in and completing higher education courses in the Northern Territory slowly continues to climb. Since the first policies supporting the Australian Government's self-determination policy that encompassed training of Indigenous teachers in the Northern Territory, Charles Darwin University and Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education have played vital roles in increasing opportunities for Indigenous people to participate and succeed in higher education across all industries. From a policy perspective, these institutions are responsible for implementing Indigenous higher education policies at the local level in order to ensure that practice is guided by policy. Yet, there are other factors at play when considering policy implementation. This paper will provide a historical narrative around the institutional responses to national Indigenous higher education policies and summarise how implementation has often been constrained by parallel economic and socio-political forces.

This article critically examines definitions of policy 'success' in the context of historical Indigenous higher education policy in the Northern Territory (NT), Australia. We begin by summarising applications of the often-used but arbitrary, rarely-critiqued terms 'policy success' and 'what works'. The paper chronologically articulates what 'policy success' has looked like in the context of historical Northern Territory higher education, based on a critical analysis of policy documents. We then apply Critical Race Theory and Indigenous research theories to highlight the power processes that are attached to representation of policy issues, creation of policy goals, and ultimately definitions of 'success'. We also consider the role of ethical principles in framing conceptions about what constitutes a worthy policy goal. We suggest expansion and resourcing of formalised Indigenous governance mechanisms is needed to create more productive dialogue about Indigenous higher education policy goals and, ultimately, discussions around what 'works'.

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