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BUILDING ON OUR COMMITMENT TO INDIGENOUS LEARNING
10 May 2005 MINBUD 37/05
The Australian Government’s tenth Budget continues
to build on its commitment to improving opportunities for Indigenous
students in pre-school, schooling, training and higher education,
with $505.4 million in funding for 2005-06. This is an increase of
$12.3 million over the current financial year.
This reflects the Australian Government’s continued
resolve to close the divide in education outcomes between Indigenous
and non-Indigenous people.
Significant progress has been made in improving the
education outcomes for Indigenous students. However, unacceptable
disadvantage remains. Whilst Year 12 retention rates have risen to
record levels, they are still only half that of non-Indigenous
Australians. Although national literacy and numeracy benchmark
results are the best to date, they are still well below the
non-Indigenous rate, particularly in remote areas.
The 2005-06 Budget commits to funding three new
significant initiatives targeted at students from remote areas where
the need is greatest:
- $23.1 million over 5 years will be provided for the
Indigenous Youth Mobility Programme. This programme will help
young Indigenous people from remote Australia access training and
employment opportunities on offer in major regional and urban
centres. Participants will elect to relocate to major regional
centres with the support of their families and communities to take
up training;
- $12.9 million over 5 years will be provided for the
Indigenous Youth Leadership Programme. This initiative will
enable talented young Indigenous Australians, mainly from remote
areas, to access high performing schools and tertiary institutions
located in cities and regional centres. 250 school and university
based scholarships will be provided; and
- $8.7 million over 4 years will be provided for the Tutorial
Support for Remote Indigenous Students. This programme will
assist more than 2,000 Indigenous students over 4 years who move
away from their remote community to attend a school, by providing
them with access to high quality tutorial assistance in their
first year away from home.
The 2005-6 Budget also provides funding for:
-
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Study Assistance
Scheme (ABSTUDY) (an estimated $205.4 million)
This is a major component of the Australian Government’s
commitment to Indigenous equity. It assists Indigenous students at
secondary and tertiary levels by providing income support and
supplementary benefits to address the historical disadvantages
they face in education.
-
Indigenous Education Strategic Initiatives Programme (IESIP)
($195.7 million)
The IESIP programme provides supplementary recurrent funding on a
per-student basis to independent pre-schools, government and
non-government schools and independent vocational and educational
training institutions. IESIP is focused on improving Indigenous
literacy and numeracy for Indigenous students, increasing
Indigenous enrolments and attendance, increasing the involvement
of Indigenous people in education, and providing culturally
inclusive education.
IESIP also funds national strategies such as the
coalition of school principals’ ‘Dare to Lead’ initiative and the
‘What Works’ initiative which assists teachers and school leaders
to develop new skills for working with Indigenous students.
Importantly, assistance to whole-of-government initiatives in
remote Indigenous communities, such as Murdi Paaki, is also
provided through this programme.
-
Indigenous Education Direct Assistance Programme (IEDA)
($70.4 million)
The IEDA programme supports: high quality tutorial assistance for
Indigenous students at key stages of their education, initiatives
to promote parent and school partnerships to improve student
learning outcomes, and homework centres in communities that face a
very difficult educational environment.
-
Indigenous Support Programme ($29.4 million)
An increase of some $2.3 million in the next financial year
will enable institutions to invest further in initiatives designed
to increase the participation and success of Indigenous students
in higher education.
-
Indigenous VET Infrastructure Programme ($4 million)
$4 million will be allocated to improve vocational education
and training for Indigenous people. Funds are used to support a
range of projects such as for the purchase of mobile training
units and equipment, and construction of training centres.
-
Indigenous Higher Education Advisory Council ($0.3 million)
During the next twelve months, the Council will provide me
with advice to further improve outcomes for Indigenous students
and staff in terms of their participation, progression, and
retention in both study and employment in higher education.
-
Indigenous Staff Scholarships ($0.2 million)
Over the next twelve months, a further 5 national scholarships
will be awarded to Indigenous staff in higher education to take 1
year of leave from their university employment to undertake
full-time higher education study.
From January 2005, the shape and direction of
Indigenous education programmes changed significantly. Programmes
have been restructured in order to redirect funding to initiatives
that have been demonstrated to work, to direct a greater weighting
of resources to Indigenous students in remote areas, and to leverage
mainstream funding for Indigenous education purposes.
An important part of this funding package is a
strengthened performance framework. Specifically, the Australian
Government will require State and Territory Governments and
educational authorities to meet the following conditions:
- introduction of school attendance benchmarks;
- commitment to performance measures and targets and to monitor
results;
- measuring outcomes at the remote, rural and metropolitan
level, rather than just aggregate state level data which often
masks large regional variation;
- providing an annual statement that details how the funding
provided by the Australian Government to school systems is being
spent on improving educational outcomes; and
- transparently reporting their expenditure on Indigenous
education in order to ensure that all the money provided actually
gets to the intended recipients.
This funding commitment is part of the Howard
Government’s $2.1 billion package for Indigenous education for
2005-08. The funding package is a 22.3% increase over the previous
four year funding period.
Media Contacts:
Dr Nelson’s Office: Yaron Finkelstein 0414 927 663
Dept of Education, Science & Training: Virginia Cook 0412 971 323
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