Education innovation in the Top End

For broadcast on 2CH Sydney, 17 Nov 2013.

The choices for secondary education for Indigenous children in remote communities are limited to remaining in their communities which offer only primary education, or relocating to large towns to access secondary education.

Eternity newspaper reports that, with only 24 per cent of Indigenous students in remote communities having access to a secondary school, the Northern Territory’s Woolaning Homeland Christian College offers a third option for high school: six terms a year of six weeks each, allowing students to return regularly to their own communities and retain strong connections to their families and culture.

The College operates six family group homes with up to ten students in each home, and Northern Territory Christian Schools is looking for committed Christian couples to serve as house parents, helping Indigenous students gain a Christian education that will give them the skills to make a valuable contribution to the society in which they live.

I’m Rod Benson for the NSW Council of Churches.