CLOSING THE GAP

Target: Close the gap between
Indigenous and non-Indigenous school
attendance within five years (by 2018).
KEY POINTS
• Recognising the critical importance of school
attendance, both government and non-government
education authorities will continue to work with
communities and families to encourage and
support children going to school regularly.
• In 2016, the overall attendance rate for Indigenous
students nationally was 83.4 per cent, compared
with 93.1 per cent for non-Indigenous students.
• There has been no meaningful change in the
national Indigenous school attendance rate
from 2014 (83.5 per cent) to 2016 (83.4 per
cent). Progress will need to accelerate across
most jurisdictions for this target to be met.
• School attendance for Indigenous students decreases
with remoteness. In 2016, Indigenous attendance
rates ranged from 86.9 per cent in inner regional
areas to 66.4 per cent in very remote areas.
• Schools selected for the Remote School Attendance
Strategy (RSAS) generally had a history of low
and declining attendance rates over a number
of years. RSAS is addressing these declining
rates of school attendance and the majority of
RSAS schools had a higher attendance rate in
Semester 1 2016 compared to Semester 1 2013.
WHAT THE DATA TELLS US
In Semester 1 2016, the national school attendance
rate (Year 1 to 10) was 92.5 per cent; however, there is
a sizable gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous
students. In 2016, the attendance rate for Indigenous
students was 83.4 per cent, almost 10 percentage
points lower than the comparable rate for
non-Indigenous students (93.1 per cent). While this
is a sizeable gap, the data tell us that on a given
school day the majority of Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander students are attending school.
There has been negligible change in the rate of school
attendance for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
children from 2014 (83.5 per cent) to 2016 (83.4 per cent).
There was also little change in the rate of attendance for
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students from 2014
to 2016 by state and territory. All of the changes were
less than one percentage point, apart from the Northern
Territory (1.6 percentage point fall). No jurisdictions
were on track for this target in 2016 (see Figure 6). 13
Indigenous attendance rates decrease with remoteness.
In 2016 the attendance rate for Indigenous students
fell from 86.9 per cent in inner regional areas to
66.4 per cent in very remote areas. As this relationship
is less pronounced for non-Indigenous students, the
gap in attendance rates increases with remoteness
(illustrated in Figure 7). In very remote areas, the gap
between Indigenous and non-Indigenous attendance
rates was 24.7 percentage points in 2016.
13 The Indigenous attendance rate was counted as being on
track if the attendance rate (rounded to a whole number)
was equal or greater than the agreed trajectory point.
Figure 6: Indigenous student attendance rates (per cent) Year 1 to 10 combined, by state/territory,
Semester 1, 2014 and 2016
Per cent
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
87.5 86.8 86.8 87.1 85.2 85.6
88.5 88.2
85.2 85.4
81.1 81.1
83.5 83.4
77.4 76.6
70.2 68.6
NSW VIC QLD SA WA TAS NT ACT Australia
2014
2016
Source: Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority
•36• CLOSING THE GAP: PRIME MINISTER'S REPORT 2017