School is missing link in jobs effort

INDIGENOUS employment is constrained by supply, not demand.

Two years ago, on the same day that Greg Gaily from the Business Council of Australia highlighted that "no public issue creates more personal passion among BCA CEOs than the plight of our indigenous communities", Andrew Forrest, Rupert Murdoch, Noel Pearson, Kevin Rudd and a who's who of Australian business launched the Australian Employment Covenant, an ambitious scheme to get Australia's largest companies to employ 50,000 indigenous Australians.

Later that day, fresh from the launch of the covenant at Kirribilli House, Rudd announced the federal government would invest $20 million into the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation to provide scholarships for marginalised indigenous children to access some of the leading schools in the nation. Rudd called on corporate Australia to match this with another $20m.

Two years down the track, what's happened?

While the covenant has helped stimulate demand for indigenous staff, with corporate Australia guaranteeing 20,000 indigenous jobs under the pact, the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University recently reported that only 2800 of these places have been filled and it didn't have any data on the retention rates for these job placements. (See Paul Cleary's article on the facing page.)

The demand for indigenous employees is already well established, a demand that is growing rapidly. The competition for indigenous talent is like an arms race among Australia's leading corporates. But supply is the issue. Where are the young indigenous people to fill the jobs?

The missing link is a shortage of well-educated and job-ready indigenous young people.

Each week the AIEF talks to large corporations desperate to meet their ambitious indigenous employment targets.

At AIEF we partner with some of Australia's leading schools, corporates and the federal government to provide high-quality boarding school education to indigenous children in financial need, whose families and communities are knocking down our doors.

Australian companies want well-educated and job-ready indigenous Year 12 graduates. There are thousands of high-quality schools in the country that can produce them. At AIEF, our job is to fund the scholarships to connect the two.

A survey last year found AIEF's partner schools have an 85 per cent Year 12 completion rate for indigenous students, nearly double the national average of 45 per cent for indigenous students and even higher than the 76 per cent national completion rate for non-indigenous students.

About two-thirds (63 per cent) of the school leavers at AIEF partner schools go to university, 20 per cent to training and apprenticeships and 17 per cent directly into the workforce. These results are unparalleled.

Through AIEF's post-school pathways program, indigenous students are mentored, tutored and trained by successful and experienced corporate staff, visiting their workplaces and being exposed to the types of careers they offer. This month, more than 70 indigenous students will graduate from the schools AIEF works with in NSW and Queensland, having completed their Year 12 studies.

AIEF offers nearly 300 scholarships a year and has raised more than $30m since the then prime minister's announcement two years ago, with less than 2 per cent of that spent on costs. But the demand from leading schools across the country and indigenous families and communities who want a fair go is staggering. We can't raise money fast enough to keep up with it.

Andrew Penfold is a former finance lawyer and investment banker who established the St Joseph's College Indigenous Fund and the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation with civic and corporate leaders.