An Australian National University study has found an Indigenous education policy in the Northern Territory is comprehensively failing students and calls for local solutions.
With no secondary schools in 78 of the Territory’s remote communities, students wanting a full secondary education have to attend boarding schools under the NT Government’s Indigenous Education Strategy.
The federally funded study looked at how the program is working in one Top End community and found that out of the out of 100 students examined, 59 per cent dropped out of boarding school within their first year.
The study examined a decade of educational data relating to 100 students aged between 12 and 21 who were sent to 38 different schools across 16 different towns or cities.
Co-author of the study and researcher for Aboriginal Economic Policy and Research at the ANU, Dr Marnie O’Brian says the report has revealed the need to work with communities on local solutions to secondary education.
The community and its location has deliberately been kept anonymous to protect residents.
IMAGE: Flickr/Victor Björkund