More money for heads of indigenous schools to rescue learning

THE NSW government will give unprecedented authority to 15 new executive principals.

THE NSW government will address a longstanding culture of low expectations and disastrous outcomes in indigenous education by giving unprecedented authority to 15 new executive principals.

They are to be placed on five-year contracts, paid salary packages of $200,000 a year and offered $50,000 performance bonuses on the completion of their contracts, The Sydney Morning Herald reports today. The principals would become the highest-paid in the state.

Education Minister Adrian Piccoli said the focus needed to be on engaging local communities and responding to their requirements.

The new principals employed under the program would also be expected to lead and co-ordinate existing programs run by other government agencies, non-government organisations and communities.

Also, police may be stationed in the schools under the initiative, but would report to the principal.

"The very strong message is that those communities don't want solutions thrust upon them. They want solutions they are part of," Mr Piccoli told the Herald.

Where it was appropriate, health and preschool services would be shifted into schools and the communities would be encouraged to view schools as seven-days-a-week facilities rather than those that shut their doors at the end of classes.

Aboriginal languages would be made an essential part of the curriculum and schools would work with pregnant mothers and offer at least two years of preschool to every child.

The lucrative pay structure has been designed to combat the high turnover of school heads in indigenous education.

The extra authority they will be given extends reforms being implemented across the public school system. In the 15 schools participating, this authority will extend to the right to change the style of teaching and learning - even changing school hours and reworking the school calendar.

It is believed the Education Department is also talking to Catholic schools about the possibility of getting involved in the initiative in some communities.

"There is certainly goodwill and support among Catholic educators for the government's thinking," Brian Croke, the executive director of the Catholic Education Commission of NSW, told the Herald. Mr Piccoli said short-term improvement was not to be expected.

"These are very difficult and complex communities," he said.

"We're not expecting to change the world in two years. This is not a five-year commitment. This has got to be a 10- and 20-year commitment."

The program will predominantly be run in the far west of the state but also at centres such as Taree on the mid-north coast.

All teachers now employed at the 15 schools will be offered transfers should they wish to leave.