What is the real situation for Aboriginal children in the NT?
In this year’s budget, the Rudd government promised additional education resources for the NT, including 200 extra teachers over five years, 14 extra classrooms in 2008 and a few more literacy staff. These promises, even if fulfilled, are nothing more than an insulting drop in the ocean. According to conservative estimates produced last year by the Australian Education Union, NT schools require at least 1,400 new teachers, 100 teachers’ aides and a funding boost of at least $1.7 billion. Not surprisingly, teachers’ demands for this base-level funding have been studiously ignored by the government and media alike. Education of Aboriginal children in the NT has never been a priority for any government—territory or federal. At least 7,500 kids or almost 30 percent of the 22,000 under-16-year-olds in the NT are not enrolled in any form of schooling. And six out of the 73 communities “prescribed” under the intervention have no schools at all. Some settlements have primary schools or Communi
