Indigenous-Education-Review_DRAFT

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Review of Indigenous Education in the Northern Territory Bruce Wilson Chapter Nine: Attendance The Northern Territory Government has spent incalculable resources over many years to improve the school attendance of Indigenous attendance, but without material improvement. Despite the establishment of major policy statements and the development of comprehensive strategies, attendance continues to lag. The review has identified a number of reasons for this situation: factors that are outside the control of schools, such as cultural and ceremonial activities; family mobility; timing of royalty payments, the Darwin Show and similar events, football carnivals and rodeos; lack of parent and community support for attendance; overcrowding; social disruption affecting children including gambling, substance abuse and violence; lack of employment and the routines and benefits that accompany employment among parents; and natural events that disrupt attendance; the failure of schools to effectively achieve educational progress, especially in early literacy, among some attending students; the weakness of some secondary programs in schools and their lack of a connection with valued outcomes; and a lack of Department and school focus on what schools are best able to do to improve attendance among their enrolled students. Learning Lessons Learning Lessons argued that ‘…children must attend school consistently to progress. In relation to indigenous education, poor attendance is without doubt the primary cause of poor educational outcomes’ (Collins, 1999: 141). The issues described by Collins included the lack of consistent attendance and the lack of expectation from a school, community and system perspective. A culture of low expectation and low motivation to engage in schooling was seen a major contributor to poor attendance and education outcomes. The nature and depth of the attendance story was difficult to quantify. System data did not convey the seriousness of the issue, nor could it be used to identify trends and patterns of school attendance. DRAFT The situation now Since the Collins review, the situation has continued to deteriorate. The average attendance of Indigenous students in 2002 was 70%. By 2012 the percentage was around 68%, while attendance for Indigenous secondary students in very remote schools had dropped dramatically, heading towards 50%. A recent report shows that only 40% of Indigenous students attend school 80 per cent or more of the time (four days a week or more), widely regarded as a key benchmark for achievement. This is not for want of trying. Both the Territory and Australian Governments have made major efforts to improve attendance. The Northern Territory Department’s Every Child Every Day policy initiative sets out an ambitious and demanding program of action. The Australian Government’s School Enrolment and Attendance Measure (SEAM) and more recently the Remote Schools Attendance Strategy both aim to address the problem head on. 83
Review of Indigenous Education in the Northern Territory Bruce Wilson Every Child Every Day sets out a five stage process which can lead eventually to prosecution of families. The stages are: local support to families if a student has three consecutive unexplained absences; a face‐to‐face meeting with families if a significant pattern of absenteeism emerges; If there is ongoing failure to attend regularly another face‐to‐ face meeting occurs, followed by the delivery of a formal notice indicating DET’s (now DoE’s) intention to take action. An Individual Attendance Plan may be pursued at this stage; failure to comply will lead to DET (now DoE) pursuing a Family Responsibility Agreement under the Youth Justice Act; and when other avenues have failed the Department may pursue the prosecution of parents (NTG, undated A). The program also has a range of other initiatives to address non‐attendance and disengagement from school. It is supported by 46 School Attendance and Truancy Officers (SATOs). The staged approach has been used with a substantial number of truants. While fines have been issued, it appears that as many as 75% of those fines have not been paid. One bottleneck in the system concerns the inadequate availability of social workers, who are required at the point where conferences occur with families. The SEAM program uses a similar staged process, but ending with a process of welfare management rather than fines. This has been trialled in 23 schools in the Northern Territory, supported by 16 Enrolment and Attendance Officers (EAOs) and Data Officers, and funded by the Commonwealth Government under the Stronger Futures National Partnership (NTG, 2013: 4). More recently, the Australian Government has announced a Remote Schools Attendance Strategy focused on improving attendance. The program will begin in January 2014 in 21 communities in the Northern Territory (and a total of 40 schools nationally). The program will provide at least one School Attendance Supervisor in each community and one School Attendance Officer for every 20 students enrolled, the latter drawn from the local community. They will work with schools and families supporting improved attendance. The focus of the program is not legal compliance, but there could be cases where more stringent measures are required. DRAFT Department monitoring of student attendance has dramatically improved, unlike the attendance picture itself. There are now very reliable records of attendance, updated quickly and accessible for planning and monitoring purposes. If data were the answer, the issue would be resolved by now. The review saw sustained efforts by school staff to get children to school. Staff from many schools visit families each morning to collect children. Some schools have detailed records of attendance issues and take a case management approach. Others have worked with communities to seek support in encouraging children to attend. In many cases these efforts were beyond what could fairly be asked of teachers and other staff. Despite all these efforts, the deterioration in attendance has continued in recent years. Table 4 shows that overall Indigenous attendance declined by 2% between 2009 and 2012 while enrolment remained static. While provincial Indigenous attendance improved by 2%, remote attendance declined by 2.2% and very remote by 3.7%. The evident decline in 84
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