Lionel Bamblett is the General Manager of the Victorian Aboriginal Education Association Incorporated (VAEAI). A Wiradjuri/Yorta Yorta/Bangerang man, Lionel has been involved in Koorie education for over 30 years and was appointed the first General Manager of the Victorian Aboriginal Education Association Incorporated in 1985. Lionel talks in Big Brekkie about the importance of Education. Your blackfella station. Lionel has provided advice to successive governments in Victoria on measures to improve education and training opportunities for Koorie people in Victoria, and has played a prominent role in promoting Indigenous education and training issues at a local, State and National level.
He was a member of the National Aboriginal Reference Group which played a key role in the development of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy (AEP) in 1989, which is still current today. Lionel has seen VAEAI established as the peak body for Koorie education and training in Victoria, and as an equal partner with the Victorian Government in Koorie education and training since 1990 through the Partnership in Education: Koorie Education Policy and Yalca: A Partnership in Education and Training for the New Millennium in 2001. He has also overseen the development of the successful Wurreker strategy which formalised the equal partnership with the vocational education and training sector in Victoria in 2000, Wannik: Education Strategy for Koorie Students in 2008, and now Marrung: Aboriginal Education Plan 2016-2026.