In response to the Little Children are Sacred report, the Australian Government is moving quickly to intervene in around 73 remote Northern Territory (NT) communities to:
- protect children and make communities safe, and
- create a better future for Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory.
A range of new measures have been announced to support the Northern Territory National Emergency Response (NTER) including to: promote law and order, reform welfare and improve employment opportunities; support families; improve child and family health; and reform housing and land. Further information on the NTER can be found at http://www.facsia.gov.au/nter/default.htm 
There are an estimated 8,000 children (180 are non Indigenous) enrolled in 69 schools in the 73 prescribed communities in the Northern Territory. At least a further 2,000 children of school age are not enrolled in education, and of the children who are enrolled, at least 2,500 are not attending school regularly. Thus, around 4500 children of school age in the prescribed communities are not receiving adequate education.
As part of the NTER DEST will be implementing five key measures to assist with ensuring that there is adequate capacity and resources within schools to meet the anticipated increases in school enrolments and attendance:
School Nutrition Programme
The School Nutrition Programme aims to achieve two main policy goals:
- Contributing to improved school attendance and engagement by providing breakfast and lunch to school aged children in schools in prescribed communities in the Northern Territory (NT). The initiative will help to improve educational outcomes for a wider cohort of Indigenous students as a result of expected increases in school attendance stemming from the Government’s welfare reforms and:
- Provide for employment opportunities for local Indigenous people. It will do this by working closely with local Indigenous communities, to identify and build local people’s skills, and supporting them to take up positions in delivering the programme.
Subsidiary aims include: supporting greater Indigenous parental and community involvement in schools; building parental skills in meal preparation and provision; providing opportunities for nutrition awareness and education in schools; improved health status of students; and contributing to a ‘work ready’ base of Indigenous people in remote NT communities. A copy of the interim programme guidelines are attached below. These will be updated from time to time.
- Interim School Nutrition Programme Guidelines 2007-2008 RTF
(4.5 MB) PDF 
(999.0 KB)
- School Nutrition Programme Factsheet RTF (36.9 KB) PDF (31.2 KB)
Build a Quality Teaching Workforce
This measure will provide a funding contribution to support quality teaching initiatives at all pre-schools, primary and secondary schools (both government and non-government) within prescribed communities. Funding will be used to develop a Quality Teaching Package, with components of the package to be agreed between the Northern Territory Government, other providers (the NT Catholic Education Commission and the NT Independent Schools Association) and the Minister for Education, Science and Training.
Quality teaching is acknowledged as being essential to improving educational outcomes for Indigenous students, while fostering in them a strong sense of identity as successful learners, and as Indigenous Australians.
Additional Classrooms
At least 10 schools in the prescribed communities have current average student attendance that exceeds available classroom capacity. A further 12 schools have emerging classroom pressures where classrooms are operating at 80% or more of current capacity and will face significant accommodation pressure when school attendance provisions impact on communities. The Australian Government contribution will help to ease the pressure on classrooms in schools where there is risk of high student numbers returning as a result of the welfare reforms.
Accelerated Literacy and Numeracy
Around 4,500 students will have had little or no contact with the school system. Getting them through the school door is important; keeping them there and learning effectively is critical. These students will require systematic, intensive instruction by appropriately skilled teachers to build the foundational skills required to enable them to succeed at school. This measure will:
- extend the successful accelerated literacy approach (also known as scaffolding literacy) to the 34 schools in the prescribed communities that are not already using the approach, for approximately 2,000 primary students and some 340 secondary students who currently attend regularly; and
- offer the successful MULTILIT instruction to some 2,250 primary school age children who are currently non-regular attendees or not-enrolled and some 350 secondary students (25% of the secondary aged cohort who are not enrolled and may return to school).
Volunteers
As part of the NTER, DEST will implement the Volunteer Teacher Initiative which seeks to increase the number of teachers and teacher assistants within the prescribed communities in the NT through a call of expression across Australia. The volunteer initiative will not replace existing teachers in communities. Rather, it aims to increase teacher numbers to meet the increase in student attendance.
For further information about DEST’s role in the NTER you can call 1800 422 422 available from 4 December 2007 or email nter@dest.gov.au.