At a time when a debate about public education and the dwindling resources allocated to it under this government continues to rage both in this place and elsewhere, and when improving educational opportunities as well as numeracy and literacy skills standards remains of critical importance in ensuring Australia’s future prosperity, it is especially important that we pay particular attention to Indigenous education and continue to look for new ways to lift the school retention and success rates as well as the literacy and numeracy skills of Indigenous school children.
Among Australia’s Indigenous communities there is a proportionally higher number of school-age children aged under 15 years in comparison with the rest of Australia. The Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment Bill 2006 sets aside an additional $43.6 million to be spent from 2006 to 2008 on Indigenous education and training. The extra funding listed under this bill will target several key initiatives currently maintained by the Indigenous Education Strategic Initiatives Program. They include tutorial assistance programs aimed at year 9 school students as well as at students undertaking TAFE and vocational training and education courses; school based sporting academies and related activities, as well as Indigenous youth festivals; and programs designed to discourage substance abuse among Indigenous youth.
The Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment Bill serves as a conduit for funds to be channelled into such programs—programs that were originally designed to improve Indigenous student learning outcomes and further close the gap that still exists between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students in their respective school retention and success rates. To take one example, the Indigenous Tutorial Assistance Scheme for year 9 Indigenous students currently provides them with up to four hours of tutorial assistance per week for up to 32 weeks in a year. In doing so it aims to increase the chances of these students making it to year 10, and then hopefully going on to successfully complete year 12. As it stands, this bill promises a further $14.5 million on top of the $15.6 million already allocated to this program over the next two years. Of course, this can only be a good thing.
In truth, however, the extension of year 9 tutorial assistance and vocational education and training programs made possible by this additional funding only restores support that was previously available to Indigenous students under the Aboriginal Tutorial Assistance Scheme. At the same time its benefits are offset by this government’s continued tightening of eligibility requirements for Abstudy allowances for students under the age of 16, including the introduction of means testing and the requirement that students be enrolled in full-time studies in order to receive maximum Abstudy assistance. In addition, for Indigenous students living in urban centres, only those who are studying in schools with an enrolment of 20 students or more are eligible to apply for the Indigenous Tutorial Assistance Scheme.
This bill fails to address ongoing concerns regarding the operation of the Parent School Partnership Initiative program, whose increasing bureaucracy has only had the effect of alienating parents and Indigenous community members alike, and whose maze of grants and applications means that teachers and school administrators frequently become bogged down in submission-writing exercises. But perhaps most crucially, this bill does nothing new in terms of early intervention programs for Indigenous students. By continuing to limit access to ITAS to students in year 4 and above it ignores current education research that has highlighted the crucial importance of early intervention programs as a way of significantly improving a student’s chances of successfully finishing his or her schooling.
What this bill does is mask the continued underspending of Commonwealth funds on Indigenous education, which now stands at somewhere in the order of $126 million. This is money that the government has withheld from Indigenous education programs that are designed to help address the disadvantages and inequalities that a vast majority of Indigenous students still face. And when you look at the figures for school retention rates, what they tell you is that this government is still not doing enough in the area of Indigenous education and that we as a country still have a long way to go before there is anything like parity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students.
Year 12 retention rates for Indigenous students are still half that of non-Indigenous students. Only 39.5 per cent of Indigenous students made it to year 12 in 2005, compared with 76.6 per cent among non-Indigenous students. This figure of 39.5 per cent represents only an eight per cent increase in year 12 retention rates for Indigenous students over the six years since 1994. Of course that is not good enough. In terms of higher education, in 2003 the participation rate of Indigenous students in our higher education institutions actually declined relative to non-Indigenous students enrolled in higher education. There has been little noticeable improvement in the retention rates for Indigenous students at university relative to non-Indigenous students, and there is still a big difference between Indigenous success rates at university compared with the success rate of non-Indigenous students.
Whilst this bill promises an extra $43.6 million for strategic Indigenous education initiatives, the reality is that a whole lot more needs to be done across the board if we are to see any substantial improvement to Indigenous education. The bill signals but a small step in the right direction, yet current government guidelines that restrict access to educational assistance and tutorial programs for some Indigenous students as well as access to Abstudy only threaten to undermine whatever gains are made by this bill.
I take this opportunity to recognise the invaluable work done by Mr Terry Kildea and his staff at the Gunung-Willam-Balluk Learning Centre, which offers a Koori programs unit in partnership with Kangan Batman TAFE, and which is located in my electorate of Calwell. The Gunung-Willam-Balluk Learning Centre is a leading provider of vocational education and training to Indigenous students throughout Melbourne. The centre aims to empower students by merging the cultural heritage and values of the traditional landowners with contemporary Aboriginal culture and cutting-edge learning technology. It uses a combination of classroom, practical and applied initiatives, including art exhibitions, music festivals, community projects and cultural camps, to encourage its students to learn. Importantly, the learning centre also offers its students additional support in helping them find either employment or further educational opportunities once they have completed their studies.
I have had the opportunity to visit the Gunung-Willam-Balluk Learning Centre on a number of occasions, and each time I have been greatly impressed by the hard work of its staff, who provide Indigenous students with training and education courses and opportunities that they would otherwise not have access to. Many of the difficulties that the learning centre faces daily are broadly indicative of the enormous challenges that still lie ahead in improving attendance rates, retention rates and employment opportunities for Indigenous students. According to Terry Kildea, who manages the learning centre, one trend that remains of particular concern is the early age at which Indigenous students are leaving school. The centre has had to cater for school leavers as young as 11 years old who need assistance. The need to cater for large numbers of early school leavers as well as students who become caught up in the juvenile justice system is putting enormous pressure not only on the learning centre in Broadmeadows but on other Koori education units affiliated with TAFE institutions around Australia.
What this means is that much more needs to be done to find ways to significantly lower the number of early school leavers amongst Indigenous students, and to reduce the number of Indigenous children currently caught up in Australia’s juvenile justice system. Housing, health, transport and a host of other difficulties only compound the obstacles Indigenous students face in this country. A number of the students enrolled at the Gunung-Willam-Balluk Learning Centre live in public housing, which tends to make them fairly transient, and they frequently complain of difficulties travelling to and from school. Very few students have either a drivers licence or access to a car. Transport is a problem that affects Indigenous students living in urban centres, not just those who live in remote areas.
In response, one of the many initiatives that the learning centre in Broadmeadows has introduced is driver education courses for those students without a driving licence or without enough experience driving on the roads. The funding that is provided under the IESIP is crucial to this and many other programs and initiatives that the learning centre offers its students. It allows the learning centre to host a monthly rewards and recognition luncheon that recognises and rewards diligent students with such prizes as supermarket vouchers, travel passes and movie passes as a way of encouraging students to persist with their education and training. In themselves, these prizes speak volumes about the disadvantages and difficulties that Indigenous Australians and Indigenous schoolchildren still face. Food vouchers and travel allowances are a good indication of just how interconnected and systemic are the problems Indigenous children face.
One of the centre’s great success stories is its distribution of refurbished computers to those students who, because of travel difficulties, childcare commitments, family responsibilities and so forth, find it difficult to regularly attend courses at the learning centre. These computers make it possible for students to study from home, and since its introduction this program has seen something in the order of a 300 per cent increase in student retention and success rates.
IESIP funding also enables the centre to provide tutorial assistance for its students as well as cultural studies and cultural support programs that enable community elders to visit and speak with students at the centre and those in custody. These and other such programs initiated by the Gunung-Willam-Balluk Learning Centre provide vital resources and support for Indigenous students, making the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act and the Indigenous Education Strategic Initiatives Program key components in ongoing efforts to lift school retention and success rates among Indigenous children.
It is crucial that funding for these programs arrives on time. Mr Kildea drew my attention to delays that the learning centre experienced in receiving last year’s funding. Such delays often occur because of disagreements between the Commonwealth and relevant state governments. In the case of the Gunung-Willam-Balluk Learning Centre, the IESIP funding that was supposed to arrive at the beginning of the 2005 academic year did not arrive until late December 2005. The timely distribution of IESIP money is absolutely essential to future planning as well as to ensuring that a range of programs remain available at the learning centre.
As a 2005 report commissioned by the Council of Australian Governments clearly states:
Students who stay on at school and complete Year 12 are much more likely to undertake additional education and training. In turn, they will have more, and better, employment options.
In the long term, people who have completed secondary or post-secondary education are more likely to encourage their children to do the same, so that benefits can flow from one generation to another. Until we as a nation achieve parity in school retention and success rates between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children, it is incumbent upon us to find ways to improve the educational prospects of Indigenous children in this country. As other speakers have done before me, I am happy to support this bill.
