NT govt unveils new 10-year education engagement strategy to lift student attendance rates

The NT government 2022-2031 education engagement strategy, unveiled in Alice Springs on Monday, aims to lift school attendance rates across the Territory.

THE NT government has unveiled its new 10-year education engagement strategy, aimed at lifting school attendance rates across the Territory, in Alice Springs on Monday.

The 2022-31 strategy, which is backed by $10m in Territory funding for the first three years only, seeks to boost student engagement and improve educational outcomes.

A central focus of the plan is a bilingual approach that embeds the languages of First Nations people as languages taught within the curriculum, a policy scrapped under the Labor government in 2009.

The government identified a need to work more with community leaders and youth, bring on additional Aboriginal teachers to remote areas, and invest in more school counsellors. More than 1000 people were engaged in more than 70 consultation sessions across the Territory, which included feedback from students, families, communities and education experts.

While the strategy outlines several goals, none are measurable, with no differentiation between urban, regional and remote school outcomes.

Education Minister Lauren Moss launched the education engagement strategy at Centralian Middle School on Monday. Picture: Lee Robinson

Education Minister Lauren Moss said the strategy offered a new approach that ensured schools were more “culturally responsive”.

“Students, families, communities and educators have told us loud and clear what we need to do to lift attendance and support better educational outcomes for our kids,” she said.

“Our approach focuses on strengthening relationships with families and communities, embedding culture and first languages in teaching and learning, building our Aboriginal workforce in schools and better supporting the wellbeing of our kids.”

The Association of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages last month raised the alarm over the education strategy for Indigenous students, highlighting that just 14 per cent of very remote Indigenous students attended school four days a week in 2020.

Independent Member for Mulka Yingiya Mark Guyula in September has been outspoken over the consultation process for the strategy, saying community voices were ignored.

“We are diverse peoples with diverse requirements and yet every few years we are all subject to the same new policy or new strategy that has been developed in Darwin,” he said.