Footy class leads to new goal
20th May 2010
Author: Caroline Milburn
Publisher: Fairfax
Publication: The Age, Page 12 (Mon 10 May 2010)
Keywords: Martin (1),Dixon (1)
Edition: First
Section: Education
Footy class leads to new goal
An innovative program to attract and keep indigenous students at school receives a boost. By Caroline Milburn.
EIGHT football and dance academies for indigenous teenagers are being established at Victorian government schools in a bid to improve poor attendance rates among Koori youth.
The Brumby government announced in last week's state budget it will pour $1.7 million into a $4.2 million scheme involving the federal government and philanthropic groups for the academies at secondary schools in Bairnsdale, Ballarat, Warrnambool, Mildura, Robinvale, Swan Hill, Eaglehawk and Mooroopna.
Dismal achievement and retention rates among indigenous school students are widely acknowledged as one of the Australian education system's biggest weaknesses. Successive governments at state and federal levels have tried to fix the problem but progress has been slow.
In Victoria 40 per cent of year 9 indigenous students failed last year's national reading tests. A quarter of the state's year 9 indigenous students did not sit the test, compared with 12 per cent of non-indigenous pupils.
Four of the five football academies started earlier this year at regional secondary schools in Mildura, Swan Hill, Warrnambool and Bairnsdale. The fifth will be established at Robinvale. All the academies will be run by the Clontarf Foundation, a not-for-profit agency aimed at improving the education, health and life skills of indigenous boys. The organisation runs 34 academies, mainly in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
To stay in the program, students must continue with their school studies while also attending Clontarf's specialist programs.
State Aboriginal Affairs Minister Richard Wynne says the government's decision to form a partnership with Clontarf was based on the agency's success in getting students to complete their schooling.
Many of the academy staff are ex-AFL footballers employed to work as student mentors and trainers. The foundation's founder and chief executive officer, Gerard Neesham, says the state funding will help expand and sustain the academies.
Mr Neesham, a former coach of AFL team Fremantle, started the first academy in Perth 10 years ago, with 25 boys. More than 2300 teenagers are now enrolled in the school-based academy program.
''It became obvious to me that football could attract boys back to school and once we got them back we could change their behaviour,'' he says. ''Aboriginal boys miss too much primary school to effectively take on high school and they eventually drop out by the time they're 15. Then the outcomes for these boys are not good: that happens everywhere in Australia.''
At Mildura Senior College the academy is already having an impact. For the first time all of the school's indigenous boys enrolled in years 11 and 12 returned to school after the first term break to begin second term, according to principal Dennis Norton.
The three dance academies at schools in Ballarat, Eaglehawk and Mooroopna are for girls in years 7-9. The government is yet to announce which philanthropic agencies will help run them.
In other state budget initiatives, the government will spend $109 million to improve preschool and school services for disabled children.
Children and Early Childhood Development Minister Maxine Morand says the government developed the funding package in response to complaints from parents about the inadequacy of education and early intervention services for disabled children.
The extra funding to support disabled children includes:
|$38 million for early intervention services such as speech therapy and physiotherapy for preschool-aged children.
|$38 million to meet rising demand in schools for teacher support and specialist services for disabled students, especially for those with autism or an intellectual disability.
|$18 million to boost bus and other transport services for more than 1700 students enrolled at specialist schools.
|$9.2 million to create a Victorian Deaf Education Institute in Melbourne to support and train teachers working with deaf students across Victoria.
|$4 million to establish, in partnership with specialist schools, purpose-built satellite classrooms in mainstream primary and secondary schools for disabled students to get extra help.
The extra government spending on early intervention services is the biggest funding increase in the area since 2003. Families with disabled children welcomed the overall funding package, saying it would make a noticeable difference in improving children's preparation for school and the quality of their education.
''The funding package is a significant announcement,'' says Alan Blackwood, the Victorian vice-president of the Association for Children with a Disability.
''Kids with disabilities need more individual support to reach their educational goals. While the extra money is good, we want to make sure it's well spent: there are still a range of implementation issues that need further work, such as professional development for teachers and managing children's transitions to primary school and then from primary to secondary.''
Rebecca Ladd, the acting chief executive officer of Deaf Children Australia, says the establishment of an institute to improve the skills of teachers working with deaf children was a positive step. ''We consulted with more than 150 families for our submission to the state government's recent review into deaf education and one of the main concerns from families was the need for better training and support for teachers.''
Victoria's baby boom triggered spending boosts in schooling and kindergarten services. The government will rebuild, renovate or extend an extra 53 schools, on top of its 2006 election promise to refurbish 500 schools. It will also fund an extra 3590 kindergarten places.
The Australian Education Union says the spending on early childhood, disability and school building is welcome but other areas needing urgent attention, such as TAFE and ways to help disengaged students, received scant attention in the budget.
Opposition education spokesman Martin Dixon says the budget initiatives were disappointingly narrow in scope, given the challenges facing the education system.
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