Indigenous-Education-Review_DRAFT

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Review of Indigenous Education in the Northern Territory Bruce Wilson On each site the program has a Family Educator and a Family Liaison Officer (FLO). Playgroup Leaders are also funded in five sites under another Australian Government initiative. Indigenous staff members are intended to be employed in each location, and staff are offered training. Some staff are being provided with accredited training in Certificate III in Children’s Services while in other cases, training for staff is provided mainly through FaFT workshops or by on‐the‐job training led by the Family Educators and supported and monitored by system Program Advisors located in regions. Playgroup Leaders are mostly trained on site by the Family Educators. It is intended that FaFT workshop content will link to competencies in Certificate III Community Services Work, which is the recommended minimum qualification for FLOs. An early process evaluation of FaFT found that ‘the program is heading in a positive direction as a vehicle for the delivery of place‐based services for Aboriginal children and families. The program is clearly meeting an important community need’ (Menzies, 2011: vi). One key factor in its early success was identified as local community based support and supervision (ibid.: vii). More recently, an evaluation of the Strong Start Bright Futures program stated: FaFT is thriving at most sites and has a significantly sized Indigenous workforce. Early indications are that, largely as a result of the FaFT program, children are more ‘school ready’ when they commence school (Menzies 2013: 56). The evaluation report notes, however, that the veracity of this largely anecdotal evidence will be tested by improvements in the AEDI data and school attendance data. It will also be important to maintain a strong evaluation program to ensure that the initiative is achieving measurable improvement in its key target areas and to provide feedback on areas for further development. DRAFT A further evaluation is being conducted by Melbourne University over three years. A firm view about the value of FaFT will have to await more formed findings from the evaluation. The review was impressed with the strong evidence base for the elements of the program, and with anecdotal responses from some sites where implementation was seen as highly effective. At some sites, the program had clearly attracted significant interest and continuing engagement from parents and it appeared that parents were enthusiastic, albeit sometimes in small numbers, about the program. Despite the evidence for success, we note two significant issues that were raised by respondents in the review process. In a number of interviews conducted by the review there were comments about uneven implementation of FaFT. One respondent estimated that the program was being implemented fully effectively in about 50% of cases. It was beyond the scope of the review to collect sufficiently fine‐grained data to determine the truth of these suggestions, but weak or uneven implementation of programs was a strong theme in the review. The critical factors are likely to be the support of school leadership and staff capacity and training. Some respondents claimed that a significant proportion of Indigenous program staff did not have access to accredited training, although they were offered substantial professional development. The development by the Department of the Early Childhood Workforce Plan 2011–2021, reflecting the research indication that early childhood reforms will be ineffective ‘unless workforce training issues are addressed’ (Moss et al: 4). 51
Review of Indigenous Education in the Northern Territory Bruce Wilson The review supports the rollout of FaFT. It is my view that the current implementation program has probably reached almost as many sites as is feasible in Northern Territory very remote settings. In urban schools with a high Indigenous population, where FaFT is not supported, it is important to ensure that there is an evidence‐based early childhood program with the characteristics of FaFT. An internal review should be undertaken to determine: whether there are any remaining communities with a target group large enough to support extension of FaFT; whether there are sites that have not yet achieved effective implementation or staff training and what remedial action is required; and how early childhood programs linked with urban schools with a high Indigenous population can be supported to access the evidence‐based approaches and resources of FaFT. The period between the 2009 and 2012 AEDI data collections saw the rollout of FaFT and the wider implementation of the pre‐school program. While reservations were expressed about the reliability of inter‐collection changes between the 2009 and 2012 AEDI collections, it would be worth examining the data by community to determine whether there is any association between engagement in FaFT and pre‐school and local changes in AEDI results between collections. Pre‐schools The Northern Territory is committed to ensuring that every Indigenous four year old in a remote community has access to a high quality early childhood education program for 15 hours per week, 40 weeks a year. The Territory has committed to benchmarks of 95% of children having access and 90% attending. Indigenous children are eligible to attend preschool if they turn three on or before 30 June of the enrolment year. The review saw evidence that this early start was occurring in some schools. DRAFT The Department now indicates that through Universal Access to early years learning, 90% of the pre‐school cohort has access to services in the year prior to full‐time schooling. The Indigenous enrolment for this cohort is 79.3%. The AEDI data show that the number of Indigenous children attending a pre‐school program rose from 865 in 2009 to 1078 in 2012. Pre‐schools are provided in association with schools and mostly on school sites. In addition to on‐site pre‐schools, the Department of Education provides mobile pre‐schools which service small communities in very remote locations. Mobile pre‐schools visit communities for two days on average. They are staffed by a qualified teacher (not necessarily an early childhood teacher). The Department is also responsible for registration of pre‐schools. The review strongly supports the pre‐school program. There are, however, two areas of concern that were raised often during the review. The first concerns parent engagement in pre‐schools. It appears that the strong levels of parent engagement evident in FaFT do not continue when children make the transition to pre‐school. While some schools had made efforts to overcome this problem, there seemed to be a barrier in operation. Over the course of the review, many of the FaFT sites showed evidence of a strong transition program in place to support families with the move to pre‐school, which is part of the FaFT program. However the disconnect between FaFT and the pre‐school in supporting this program was very apparent in many cases. This lack of recognition by the pre‐schools and school 52
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