Aboriginal students get 'leg-up, not handout' at Scots
FORMER advertising executive Jonny Samengo has a bigger job funding school fees than most private school parents.
FORMER advertising executive Jonny Samengo has a bigger job funding school fees than most private school parents.
Every year, he has to find the money to fund six years of board and tuition fees for three or four Aboriginal students as part of The Scots College's indigenous education program. At about $50,000 a student, that's roughly $1 million a year.
Mr Samengo, executive officer of the indigenous education program, admits he's lucky the school sits in one of the wealthiest postcodes in the country, in Sydney's Bellevue Hill.
It makes his job a bit easier that there are some families willing to take on the added expense of funding an Aboriginal student all the way through secondary school.
"Because the fees go up a fair amount each year, we try to lock them in for a six-year commitment," Mr Samengo says.
As part of efforts to grow the program, now in its sixth year, from 16 boys to 20, and provide more secure funding, the school is testing new methods - such as a novel deal to fund places through credit card reward points.
Scots has just signed a deal with Westpac that allows Altitude credit card members to redeem points towards boarding and tuition fees, laptop hire, even shirts and pants for students, in the same way they might use them to buy airline tickets, hotel rooms or jewellery.
"Someone with 600,000 points can log on to the website, buy a couple of tickets to Bali and give 200,000 points to the program," Mr Samengo says.
He won't say how important a role the card scheme might eventually play, but he hopes that by spreading the word to the 850,000 cardmembers, at least some members will relieve the school's parents of the burden.
"What I want is instead of a few people giving a whole lot of money, get a whole lot of people to give a little bit," Mr Samengo says.
He is also attempting to establish a foundation of $10m from corporate and individual donations, which will generate enough income each year to fund places, supplemented by a range of government and private contributions such as Abstudy, the private sector-led Australian Indigenous Education Foundation, and Yalari Ltd.
Scots took four boarders this year: one from Arnhem Land, one from rural NSW, and one each from the Sydney suburbs of La Perouse and Redfern.
Mr Samengo interviews the prospective students and their families before selecting who will come to the school, as well as arranging a two-week trial to see if it will work for both parties.
"It gives them an opportunity to have a leg up in life," Mr Samengo says. "So rather than a handout - which has been such a failure for many people - they are part of a program that changes not just the boys but the whole community that comes into contact with them."