Scholarship puts student back on track

AIEF offers scholarships to indigenous students in financial need to study at leading Australian schools.

Tanika Davis with her son, Slade at Surry Hills in Sydney. Picture: John Feder

Tanika Davis was on the brink of dropping out of school in Year 10, before a scholarship from the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation gave her what she calls an opportunity of a lifetime — to study at Kincoppal School of the Sacred Heart, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.

The 26-year-old, from Forster on the mid-north NSW coast, graduated from Kincoppal in 2011, and said her education opened up incredible career avenues such as a job as an event manager at the NRL.

“I was at the end of Year 10 and I felt ... there were no kind of options,” she said.

She expressed her fears to a teacher at her old school, who alerted her to the AIEF scholarships.

“My teacher just said there was another option,” Ms Davis told The Australian, “and at first my parents were against the idea, but they are so grateful now that AIEF supported my education. They always say I wouldn’t be in the situation I’m in now if it hadn’t been for the scholarship.”

AIEF offers scholarships to indigenous students in financial need, from over 250 communities across the country, to study at leading Australian schools.

But in a report on the ABC last night, a former student claimed that AIEF had provided inadequate support for some of its scholarship winners, and offered no follow-up support to those who dropped out of the program and returned home before completing their studies.

However, Andrew Penfold, founder and executive director of AIEF, maintained he was proud of the program.

“Under AIEF’s school-led model, AIEF partner schools are responsible for developing relationships with indigenous families and communities, student selection and enrolment, education delivery and pastoral care,” he said.

AIEF provides support for students from Year 10 onwards to prepare students for life after school, and assist them in developing professional skills for their job, he said.

“AIEF aims to prepare students for post-school pathways,” Mr Penfold said. “AIEF provides one-on-one transition support and we monitor and track students after they complete Year 12, providing ongoing support wherever needed, as long as needed.”