Page 1851 - Week 05 - Thursday, 6 May 2010
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Recommendation 6 says:
The Committee recommends that the Department of Education and Training establish cross-cultural awareness training options for ACT teachers and negotiate with the Faculty of Education at the University of Canberra for the inclusion of pre-service courses in Indigenous studies.
Again, this is about providing teachers, before they come into the school system, with the skills necessary to equip them to be able to deal with students that will have complex needs, particularly Indigenous students—that they are provided with the skills to be able to help them and help them achieve.
Recommendation 8 says:
The Committee recommends that any programs or initiatives developed should be undertaken in consultation with ESL teachers and Indigenous educators and community leaders and that these programs should be funded independently of the existing ESL funding model.
One of the things that came up about the way the model was set up was that sometimes students who had very high needs were not being included because of the way the program was structured. This is a recommendation about looking at how that is funded, because we are seeing an increasing number of these students in the system—so that they can be accommodated and so that they are given the assistance they need to be able to achieve.
Recommendation 10 says:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government investigate options for expanding the Gugan Gulwan program to include Years 11 and 12 students.
This picks up on one of the issues which were discussed in the committee with Indigenous students in terms of the rate of students going on to year 11 and 12. The Gugan Gulwan program goes up to year 10. It has been a very successful program. It was evident that those students do still need assistance when they get to years 11 and 12. We recommend that an expansion of the program be investigated so that we can pick up on the rate of Indigenous students leaving in year 12 and, hopefully, increase the number that go on to the final years of school.
There are a number of other recommendations which I will not mention here. The report picks up on issues such as social inclusion and building them into plans that the ACT already has so that we are providing opportunities for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. That came out as being the highest single factor. We do recognise that it is more difficult in the ACT because of the way our community is structured and also because of the structure of the school system, but nonetheless it is extremely important, given that this has come up as being one of the key factors, that it is addressed adequately and that we are providing opportunities for these students to achieve and to succeed in the school system.
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