Indigenous academy for at-risk Gulf children on hold

A Queensland community is devastated that plans for a self-governed Indigenous academy for at-risk children are now on hold.

Gulf Regional Economic Aboriginal Trust chair Fred Pascoe. Picture: Brian Cassey

A self-governed Indigenous academy that would get at-risk children back into the ­classroom and out of youth crime circles has been put on hold, leaving a community devastated.

Lower Gulf of Carpentaria community leaders had proposed a Gulf Academy school for youths be established in the region requiring support from state and federal governments.

The delegates had presented the academy last year as a detailed and cost-neutral solution but said it failed to progress beyond “lip service”.

Gulf Regional Economic Aboriginal Trust chair Fred Pascoe led calls for the proposal saying the academy had the ability to create “generational change” in improving learning opportunities for at risk children.

A Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships spokeswoman said it had been advised by the community that work for the project had been paused.

The delegates, however, said the proposal had been knocked back at state level, leaving them devastated.

Mr Pascoe said the academy would have provided a structured way of engaging with young people before they began offending.

“It gets those problem kids out of the (mainstream) schools, into a program that’s based on country, gets them working with animals or gives them ways to find work,” Mr Pascoe said.

“We believe this is the answer.

“Yet the state government’s answer is to build another jail, which does not work.

“They are 90 per cent more likely to come out and reoffend.”

The Lower Gulf of Carpentaria region has a private high school at Normanton but no state high school for Years 11 and 12.

It means students are forced to attend state schools in Mount Isa, Charters Towers, or board away in Cairns, Townsville or Brisbane.

Many however, drop out ­altogether.

“We were very disheartened when it was knocked back we paused it,” Mr Pascoe said.

“It ticks all the boxes. Because what we have now is not working.”

Fellow delegate Rachel Amini-Yanner, the chair of Moungibi Housing Co-operative, said in March that the current education system did not work for its young people.

Another delegate Wade Richardson said “too many Gulf kids” were disengaged from education and those that do attend were lagging behind academically.

The department spokeswoman said it had met with the group of Gulf leaders regularly across six months to further understand the academy ­proposal.

“The department continues to work closely with Gulf and other communities to enhance local leadership through the development of local decision-making bodies,” she said.

“These bodies will identify the local priorities in their community and drive locally led initiatives.”