Indigenous Affairs Minister, Jenny Macklin, in the Northern Territory of Australia has launched a new plan to provide education and a brighter future for First Nations children in collaboration with their communities. This is the first time extensive collaboration has occurred to determine the essential needs and priorities for those most disadvantaged under the current education scheme. Rising from emergency talks, the meetings became more collaborative. However, this trend needs to be maintained and sustained over years and decades to have a complete and lasting impact.
Communities in Northern Territory have identified three priorities for their children’s future: (1) education; (2) alcohol management; and (3) employment. Education will be the driving force to break the cycle of poverty within the indigenous communities. Macklin has approved a scheme for Centrelink to intervene, and for schools to convene family conferences to find the best incentives and penalties to ensure that each child attends school each school day. Centrelink is a government agency under the Department of Human Services responsible for the development of service delivery policy; it also provides access to social, health, and other payments and services.
Regarding alcohol management, the minister intends to maintain existing restrictions and limitations on the sale of alcohol in the Northern Territory in designated areas (for all customers) and increase penalties for people defying the bans. Authorities will be able to refer problem drinkers for income management, and communities will be involved in developing their own alcohol management plans.
The government’s jobs plan provides an extra 50 ranger positions to interact with communities, particularly remote communities. Macklin says the plan guarantees employment for students who complete Year 12 of secondary school. The jobs dividend is crucial to underpin the importance of education and alcohol management because it develops self-reliance in communities that have become too welfare dependent.
The plan hopes to build widespread community support for these measures identified by the communities themselves. In an ideal world, all children would be in school gaining an education that prepares them for adulthood and sustainable employment. Unfortunately many remote communities are currently far from ideal. At present, First Nations children are unlikely to be able to compete for jobs due to a lack of opportunities available in remote areas. A chance at employment may mean relocation – a daunting and painful thought for many. However, the alternatives of not relocating to where more opportunities are or to relocate temporarily to gain the skills required to become resourceful citizens that may explore business ideas, leaves communities in the same stalemate position. Fostering the prosaic but life-changing habit of getting children to school daily is a crucial start on the way to a better future.
MARTINA NICOLLS
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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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