Election 2025: Coalition promises $100m for boarding schools for Indigenous students

The Coalition says ‘immense challenges’ face Aboriginal children living in remote communities, and has pledged to fund new boarding schools for hundreds of Indigenous students.

Students at Yirara College, a boarding school for Aboriginal students in Alice Springs which received a federal government grant last October. Picture: Supplied

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The Coalition has pledged $100m to build and expand boarding schools for 660 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students living in remote parts of Australia, should it win government next month.

Private schools have also been promised a bonus $15.9m over four years to cover the boarding costs of the extra Indigenous students.

Opposition education spokeswoman Sarah Henderson said the $100m Remote Indigenous Student Success Boarding Fund would help build and upgrade boarding facilities which predominantly serve Indigenous students, creating up to 660 new boarding places.

“Just over half of Indigenous students complete year 12, and (school) attendance in very remote areas is as low as 46 per cent,’’ she said.

“The challenges facing Indigenous children and teenagers in remote communities are immense, and this fund is all about driving successful student outcomes.’’

Schools will have to apply for funding through two competitive grant rounds.

The Coalition has also promised to boost the existing Indigenous Boarding Providers Grants Program, which supports 2500 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students across more than 40 boarding schools.

The Coalition’s education spokeswoman Senator Sarah Henderson says Indigenous children in remote areas face ‘immense challenges’ in education. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

It has pledged to boost funding by $15.9m over the next four years, to offset the boarding costs for the 660 additional Indigenous students.

Opposition Indigenous Australians spokeswoman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said the investment in boarding schools was a vital step in lifting Indigenous school attendance and retention rates.

“For Indigenous children living in remote communities, education is crucial to combating the tyranny of distance and breaking the cycle of intergenerational disadvantage which has led to such poor learning outcomes,’’ she said.

“This is unacceptable.

“A Dutton Coalition government will take real action to close the gap, not just talk about it.’’

The Coalition’s spokeswoman for Indigenous Australians, Senator Nampijinpa Jacinta Price, has promised ‘real action’ to close the education gap for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. Picture Thomas Lisson/NewsWire

Independent Schools Australia executive officer Graham Catt said Indigenous boarding schools helped close the education gap for children from remote communities with “safe, culturally responsive education and care’’.

“These schools are not elite, they are essential,’’ he said.

“Indigenous boarding schools, many of which are independent, are doing the heavy lifting for some of Australia’s most vulnerable students.’’

The Albanese government gave $18m to three schools in Alice Springs in October 2024 to expand boarding facilities.

Yirara College was offered up to $10m and St Philip’s College up to $1.7m to upgrade existing facilities, while Yipirinya School was offered up to $6.3m for a new boarding facility.

The government has also spent $43m to extend the boarding providers grants program to assist 2500 students until the end of 2026, after initially failing to provide ongoing funding in a move that had threatened the closure of several schools.

However, the government has failed to release its Indigenous Boarding Design Review, to identify ways to improve the sector.

Private schools operate three-quarters of Australia’s boarding schools, but Senator Henderson said that if elected she would negotiate with any state and territory governments wishing to access the boarding school grants.

The Coalition is still keeping its schools policy under wraps, but Senator Henderson said a “back-to-basics’’ plan for education would focus on explicit instruction and other evidence-based teaching methods to boost literacy and numeracy.

One in three Australian students failed to meet baseline standards for literacy and numeracy in last year’s National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests, including 400,000 children who have fallen so far behind they require catch-up tutoring.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students were four times more likely to fail NAPLAN than other students.

In remote regions, 90 per cent of Indigenous children failed to reach the minimum standards of literacy and numeracy, with three-quarters needing catch-up intervention.

Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson has demanded that all schools explicitly teach phonics to help Indigenous children master English reading and writing.