Indigenous-Education-Review_DRAFT

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Review of Indigenous Education in the Northern Territory Bruce Wilson community. They cover areas including early childhood, schooling, health, housing, safe communities, governance and leadership, planning and infrastructure and youth sport and recreation. The LIPs have been established and are in the process of implementation. The intention is that they will be revised over time as progress is made and as a result of negotiation and discussion with each community. The agreements reached with each community cover a range of elements. The Australian Government Coordinator General’s October 2013 report (dealing with all 29 schools involved nationally) suggests that this breadth limits the effectiveness of the approach: ‘In future, these plans should be simpler and identify a smaller number of key priorities that will focus effort and make a sustainable difference’. The response by the Northern Territory Coordinator General supports this reservation: The burden of administration created by quarterly monitoring of all Local Implementation Plan actions, which in the Territory equates to over 1,000 individual actions, is unsustainable and unproductive. The approach to Local Implementation Plans requires review, and in particular with respect to creating a methodology that enables the prioritisation of key actions that will impact most significantly upon access to services in individual Remote Service Delivery sites (Kendrick, in Gleeson, 2013: 50). The report argues that the plans show that services based on locally identified needs are effective and have encouraged agencies to ‘look beyond program boundaries’ to cooperate. But it also notes that ‘the energy and whole of government commitment has diminished over time’. While a great deal of data were collected, they were ‘difficult to interpret into meaningful statements of progress’ because of the absence of agreed independent systems of monitoring and reporting (Gleeson, 2013: 1‐2). This review supports the principle of integrated service delivery, but the evidence suggests that the LIPs have not provided a broadly effective response to this need. The development of Child and Family Centres might provide a more effective model (see Chapter 6). Local cultural training All schools should be sensitive to their cultural contexts, and should seek to reflect local culture in their physical and educational environments. It is important, however, to recognise that the purpose of this is to enhance the effectiveness of schools in teaching students and gaining the support and participation of parents and the community. The review does not support the view, articulated by some respondents, that schools should be a source of cultural maintenance, or that schools in remote communities should DRAFT have different purposes from those in other parts of the Territory or Australia. Cultural responsiveness should not deflect schools from their core purposes. For this reason, requirements of principals and teachers to source and undertake local cultural training should be clearly defined. Where local communities have the will and capacity to provide effective induction and cultural training, principals and teachers should take advantage of this opportunity. In some communities, however, there is at best a limited capacity to conduct and support such activities. In these cases, community engagement expectations of principals should be limited to engaging with key community members, communicating effectively with parents and the community about school expectations, and becoming familiar with local cultural practices with relevance to education. Principals will also engage with communities through specific other responsibilities, notably concerning student attendance. It is recommended that all principals seek to identify a local cultural mentor to support these processes. The Gleeson report recommends that: 103
Review of Indigenous Education in the Northern Territory Bruce Wilson Boards of Management (or similar) better coordinate the approach to cultural training of government staff, including the use and training of interpreters, through a lead agency. It might be feasible to build better local induction and cultural training for teachers in larger communities by using a common approach with other agencies, especially in those communities with Local Implementation Plans and/or Child and Family Centres. The issue of the Department of Education’s responsibility for initial training for all staff is addressed in Chapter 12. Recommendations 21. Develop a new community engagement charter setting out the Department’s strategy for community engagement, responsibilities of Department work units and the expected involvement of community representatives. 22. Clarify the responsibilities of principals and teachers for community engagement, provide effective training in supporting improved engagement and ensure that school review and staff appraisal processes include community engagement as an expectation. 23. Engage local communities to lead induction and local cultural training. 24. Provide support for principals in building precursor school decision making bodies based on community practice, develop governance training designed to meet the needs of remote communities and review legislation to establish a basis for precursor bodies to School Councils. 25. Focus community engagement on existing agreements where these are valued and the implementation of specific Department strategic goals (e.g. residential facilities for secondary students). DRAFT 26. Ensure that the Indigenous education unit has staff skilled and experienced in community engagement and able to support schools and communities in developing school improvement plans and establishing effective governance arrangements. 104
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Indigenous-Education-Review_DRAFT

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