Policy debate on the cards as expert calls to board remote secondary students in town

BAD facilities and atrocious student attendance rates have rendered bush high schools a failure, according to the author of the NT Government’s indigenous education review.

The NT News can reveal the review, which will be released today, proposes a “dramatic shift” that would involve sending remote teenagers to town boarding schools.

The suggestion is expected to be extremely controversial and will spark new debate about broader indigenous policy.

Author Bruce Wilson said initiatives to establish high schools in the bush have cost “hundreds of millions of dollars” but ultimately failed because of low enrolments, low attendance, inadequate facilities and limited subjects.

He said an entire generation of children had failed to gain the benefits bush schools were supposed to provide.
“Young people engaged in these programs are fulfilling the legal requirement that they remain at school without benefiting from the moral requirement that they gain something worth having from this experience,” Mr Wilson said.

The report says that, with a few exceptions, remote students should board at town schools.

“This will require careful management, dedicated resourcing, sensitive negotiation with families and communities and a continuing effort to maintain home links,” Mr Wilson said.

“It is, however, the only means by which many students can be offered a high quality secondary education. The report argues that it is unsustainable to continue to offer secondary programs that lead nowhere.”
Another potentially controversial suggestion is the rejection of indigenous language in schools. Mr Wilson acknowledged that “some people will find this a challenging position”.

“The recommendation is based on the view that indigenous children learn English in the way that other children learn English – through rigorous and relentless attention to the foundations of the language and the skills that support participation in a modern democracy and economy,” Mr Wilson said.

“The review does not support continued efforts to use biliteracy approaches, or to teach the content of the curriculum through first languages other than English.”

Mr Wilson also suggests that students who fail to develop basic skills during the early years of learning will not likely recover.

“These children – who have been the focus of improvement efforts for a decade and more – are still left irretrievably behind almost as soon as they start school,” Mr Wilson said.