DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Northern Territory Department of Education Submission

Inquiry into the Education of Students in Remote and Complex Environments

The Northern Territory (NT) Department of Education seeks to provide a submission to the inquiry into the education of students in remote and complex environments, commissioned by the Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training. The submission aims to highlight the unique circumstances experienced by students in NT remote and very remote communities and how the department is adapting its service delivery, using innovative approaches, to meet their needs.

The NT Government recognises the critical role of culture, family, community and country in delivering better outcomes, particularly for Aboriginal people. There are a number of initiatives underway that target these core factors while balancing the complexities of delivering government services in remote and very remote communities.

Remote and very remote Territory context

The NT is the most remote jurisdiction in Australia, with approximately 245 000 people spread across one sixth of Australia’s land mass. Over 40 per cent of the population is considered to live in remote or very remote areas.

The overwhelming majority of residents living in remote communities are Aboriginal Territorians, with a much younger population on average than other parts of Australia. Unemployment is high and there are significant health issues. Fifty-four per cent of remote households and 12 per cent of very remote communities speak English in the home. Most children attending school in remote or very remote communities only speak English at school, not in their community or in their home.

The transitional nature of community life, and movement of families between communities can be disruptive to a child’s education, particularly when this movement occurs across multiple jurisdictions, such as the NT, Western Australia and South Australia borders. Tracking a child’s educational progress across jurisdictions is difficult. While initiatives have previously been set up to track the movement of students across the three jurisdictions through enrolment, these have been discontinued due to privacy concerns and barriers in data sharing across jurisdictions.

Longer term environmental challenges are beginning to also impact services, especially in Central Australia, where communities are now threatened with a lack of water security, and with Top End communities beginning to be confronted by more intense cyclones and storms.

For many communities, student and family mobility can lead to truancy and inconsistent education for students. For example, ceremonies operate during particular periods of time during the year where students may be absent for an extended period of time.

These complexities, and their impact on the delivery of education to students in remote and very communities in the NT, is widely acknowledged. They present multiple challenges to students, parents, teachers, schools and the system face in accessing and delivering education.

www.education.nt.gov.au

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

However, there are also many positive factors that come from increased links to culture, family, community and country. The department works to harness these positive contributors and embed their relevance in education programs and services to have a greater impact on educational and well- being outcomes for students.

The culture of a NT community will shape the way Aboriginal children view and organise the world and impact the way in which a child learns. To build on this knowledge, and the ways of viewing the world that students bring to school, the department has adopted the use of Aboriginal pedagogies such as Learning on Country as a foundation for the development of learning in Science and Humanities and Social Sciences. The department also has a long term plan and vision to build the capacity of Aboriginal leaders, school leaders and classroom educators to implement teaching and learning programs in Indigenous Languages and Cultures curriculum. The flexibility in tailoring education delivery to student need is absolutely paramount in providing relevant and meaningful education.

NT Government initiatives

The NT Government has a number of targeted initiatives to cater for local needs and complexities. An important whole of government initiative is Local Decision Making which empowers local communities to make decisions about services that impact them and their children, including in areas of health, justice, housing and education.

It provides a holistic approach to addressing challenges and barriers with delivering government services in remote communities. As part of this work, the department is supporting Aboriginal communities to be more involved in school decisions and to have more of a say in the education and training of their children.

The department’s adaptation of this policy is the Community-led Schools initiative. It is about providing decision making to local school communities in all aspects of the school to the extent desired by that community. There are seven schools that are advanced with this work, and a further three starting their community led pathway. Fourteen schools have established committees to further facilitate community engagement. While it is early days for this initiative, the desire to be engaged in school decision making is very clear and is anecdotally having a positive impact on school and community interactions.

The Indigenous Education Strategy 2015-2024

The Indigenous Education Strategy 2015-2024 (IES) is a department initiative that is driving actions across five key areas that have a direct and measurable on outcomes for Aboriginal students, ranging from early childhood programs to developing the workforce in remote schools. The strategy forms the basis for the collaborative work between the NT Government and the Commonwealth Government, under the NT Remote Aboriginal Investment national partnership agreement. The Commonwealth Government has provided significant funding in supporting the department to deliver on the actions of the strategy and improve outcomes of Aboriginal students.

The IES is primarily funded through the Northern Territory Remote Investment Agreement (NTRAI) and this is agreed through three yearly Children and Schooling Implementation Plans with the Commonwealth Government. Over the life of the IES to date, many of the Commonwealth Government-funded key initiatives have transitioned to core funding of the NT Department of

www.education.nt.gov.au

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Education. There are, however, a number of programs that require additional investment to enable the appropriate level of delivery and target intergenerational change.

Early Childhood

The type of educational service provision that is available for a child in a remote or very remote community depends on the community in which they reside.

For 37 remote and very remote communities, children from birth to four years of age have access to the FAFT program. FAFT is a quality learning and family program that builds the capacity of parents in their important role as their child’s first teacher. FaFT aims to ensure that every child has the best start in life and the opportunity to achieve their fullest potential. Each FaFT program is delivered by a qualified early childhood educator, alongside a local Aboriginal family liaison officer.

Teaching and Learning Literacy and Numeracy

The department has adopted two common and consistent approaches to the teaching and learning of literacy and numeracy in remote and very remote schools: Literacy and Numeracy Essentials (LANE) and Direct Instruction. This approach was adopted to have continuity of programming for those students who are highly mobile and often travel between a number of communities over a schooling term. LANE includes a unit planning process enabling teachers to link the Australian Curriculum requirements with the LANE curriculum and local/contextual needs including cultural and English as an Additional Language/Dialect (EAL/D) considerations. LANE is currently being implemented in the majority of remote and very remote schools. Direct Instruction is being implemented through the Commonwealth Government’s Flexible Literacy for Remote Primary Schools Programme in three schools across the Territory.

Delivering the Australian Curriculum (including STEM) flexibly

Senior secondary provision is provided in a limited number of remote communities. For students seeking to undertake senior secondary education the options available are:  A Northern Territory Certificate of Education and Training (NTCET) (delivered on-site) in nine remote and very remote schools  NTCET delivered through the Northern Territory School of Distance Education (NTSDE) and Katherine and Alice Springs Schools of the Air1  Employment Pathways in 32 schools  Leaving their community to undertake boarding at a facility and/or school in the NT or interstate.

Yirrkala School is one example of a school that utilises the full range of NTCET flexibility to cater for its students and their post school aspirations. This includes employment, ATAR and further training pathways. They use community learning, the Duke of Edinburgh Awards program, integrated learning, workplace practices, vocational education and training (VET) undertaken through the Learning on Country Program, other VET, as well as mathematics and English courses to contribute

1 Due to a variety of factors, distance education is unlikely to be an option for Aboriginal students in remote and very remote communities. As a result of this, the student population of these schools is almost wholly non-Indigenous.

www.education.nt.gov.au

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

to their SSC. Their Integrated Learning program is constructed to value both Yolngu and western knowledge and skills and the new learnings that emerge from the nexus of these two views.

In 32 remote and very remote NT schools, students have the opportunity to learn through the Employment Pathways program. The Employment Pathways program is a secondary education provision model that contextualises teaching and learning through industry-based resources, and builds students’ knowledge and skills to progress on pathways to work, vocational education and training (VET) and the NT Certificate of Education and Training. One of the five domains of the Employment Pathways program curriculum is engagement and community connections, which focuses on recognising culture.

The program is specifically designed around relevant work place opportunities in communities to encourage engagement in meaningful learning that has been designed to align to the Australian Curriculum, the NT ESL levels, the Australian Core Skills Framework and where appropriate, the Australian VET standards.

Offered in 17 schools across the Territory, the provision of VET is designed to skill remote and very remote students and support their employability by linking students to potential employers. Students in the NT have the opportunity to undertaking a diverse range of VET courses. In some communities the school partners with local organisations such as rangers to provide on country experience and pathways to real jobs in the community. VET in secondary schools in remote and very remote locations enables students to engage in programs such as Learning on Country and Maritime to gain credits towards their secondary certificate of education.

To support students undertaking studies away from home, the department established a Transition Support Unit (TSU). In 2019, TSU provided support to 494 students enrolled in boarding schools or schools with boarding facilities. 297 of these students attended 11 different schools within the NT and the remaining 197 attended 36 schools across Australia. As at 29 March 2019, TSU had identified 925 Year 6 and 7 students from 70 very remote schools who may wish to access support to enrol in secondary schools outside of their local communities and actively provided 450 students from 78 school communities with transition planning and preparation support with a focus on attending boarding school in 2020.

Strengthening pathways to further education and the workforce

Students across the Territory have a variety of pathways to pursue further education, training and employment. In remote and very remote communities, these pathways can be limited depending on the size of the community and the number of students enrolled and attending the community school. Often the location of an Aboriginal student from a remote or very remote community will largely determine the opportunities and support that is available to them in terms of successful pathways to enter further education and the workforce.

To enable remote students to have a pathway that is comparable to students living in a metropolitan or urban area, the department provides a strongly supported boarding school process supported by the Transition Support Unit. This unit provides strong support to students attending boarding schools across the Territory and the nation. To date this initiative is proving a successful model for getting young remote and very remote students through to Year 12.

www.education.nt.gov.au

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Additionally the department undertakes an extensive VET network using both its own registered training organisation or public providers such as Batchelor Institute for Indigenous Tertiary Education and Charles Darwin University or private providers.

Conclusion

The delivery of quality education in the NT requires innovative approaches given its unique context. Since 2015, the department has taken a strategic approach towards education children and young people in remote and very remote contexts; focusing on the early years, workforce and infrastructure as key drivers of change. In the future, it is envisaged that community engagement and local decision making continues to drive the change in our schools, and our system, more broadly.

The department welcomes any opportunity to further expand on the matters outlined in this submission.

www.education.nt.gov.au