Mr McADAM - 2003-04-30
The minister would be aware that jobs are very important in the Barkly. Can he advise people in my electorate of initiatives to improve education and training outcomes?
ANSWER
I thank the member for Barkly for his question, because he shares the passion, as I do, for matters related to employment, training and education. I know he was very concerned, earlier this year, by reports of bus loads of Tennant Creek students being bussed out of Tennant Creek to a boarding school, Shalom Christian College, in Townsville. He was not the only one who was concerned; there were many in Tennant Creek and throughout the Territory.
It is not unusual for some parents to have their students attend school interstate. We, as a government, accept our responsibility to provide education and training opportunities here in the Territory, in the communities where these students live, and we want to provide opportunities so that families are less inclined to send their children away, whether to the big cities or, indeed, interstate. We want to ensure that all young people have access to appropriate, flexible and innovative programs in their own communities that will address their real needs. We want to develop strategies that provide and engage youth in a meaningful and appropriate way for them, and we have taken action in a number of areas already.
An alternative provision initiative, now being developed in Tennant Creek, is targeting youth at risk. These are juvenile offenders, disengaged students and chronic non-attendants at school, are non-enrollees in the main. At the moment, there are between 15 and 30 of these young people engaged in the program, not all indigenous. It has been set up as a partnership between any Anyinginyi Congress and Tennant Creek High School, and a memorandum of understanding is being drawn up between those two groups and is awaiting the return of the CEO from congress to ratify it.
Under that program, each student will have an individually tailored program, education or training, to suit their individual specific needs. We have allocated a teacher to the program, out of the 40 that we have already put on - coming out of the commitment of an extra 100 teachers that this government is providing the system in this term of government. Congress, on its part, has provided an off-campus training room, computers, transport and two youth workers to assist with literacy and numeracy support.
We believe this is a project that shows what can be achieved when you have real partnerships between government and communities working together, and we hope that it will serve as a pilot for other remote areas and regional centres throughout the Territory which have a similar cohort of students.
Another initiative for Tennant Creek students is that we are funding the installation of a state of the art broadband interactive vocational education and training delivery in the Tennant Creek Training Centre. This deployment complements the Northern Territory government’s $3.6m investment in the roll-out of the Interactive Distance e-Learning project throughout the NT. The training centre will be equipped with the necessary hardware to receive full video interactive instructions from studios in Darwin and Alice Springs, as well as from TAFE providers throughout the Territory. It will be installed in the centre’s open learning area and will be capable of operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week for registered users. It is one of the first sites to undertake this type of group and team learning, instead of one-to-one connection. That is just one part of a major upgrade of the training centre’s information and communications technology. The current computing facilities are also being completely replaced with 30 new student computers. These new resources are part of government’s IT provision to training centres, and will be kept up to industry standard through regular hardware and software updates. As part of the Territory-wide program …
Madam SPEAKER: Minister, would you wind up your answer? This is a very long answer.
Mr STIRLING: I certainly will, Madam Speaker. It is an important story for the Barkly. As part of that program, Tennant Creek Training Centre ICT infrastructure will also be upgraded so students, training organisations and centre staff can take advantage of both Northern Territory Education Network and the Department of Employment, Education and Training’s corporate network.
We have a responsibility to these kids. We want to engage them back into the system; we do not want their parents sending them interstate. That is the level of commitment we are making in the Barkly. We hope it will all come together, and we will apply those same sorts of ideas right throughout the Territory where we think necessary.
Madam SPEAKER: While the member for Port Darwin is walking to the podium, can I ask anyone in the gallery if they have a Toyota, registration No 620 381? I feel like I am in the casino or something, but you have left your lights on and, if it is yours, I suggest you go and turn them off.
ANSWER
I thank the member for Barkly for his question, because he shares the passion, as I do, for matters related to employment, training and education. I know he was very concerned, earlier this year, by reports of bus loads of Tennant Creek students being bussed out of Tennant Creek to a boarding school, Shalom Christian College, in Townsville. He was not the only one who was concerned; there were many in Tennant Creek and throughout the Territory.
It is not unusual for some parents to have their students attend school interstate. We, as a government, accept our responsibility to provide education and training opportunities here in the Territory, in the communities where these students live, and we want to provide opportunities so that families are less inclined to send their children away, whether to the big cities or, indeed, interstate. We want to ensure that all young people have access to appropriate, flexible and innovative programs in their own communities that will address their real needs. We want to develop strategies that provide and engage youth in a meaningful and appropriate way for them, and we have taken action in a number of areas already.
An alternative provision initiative, now being developed in Tennant Creek, is targeting youth at risk. These are juvenile offenders, disengaged students and chronic non-attendants at school, are non-enrollees in the main. At the moment, there are between 15 and 30 of these young people engaged in the program, not all indigenous. It has been set up as a partnership between any Anyinginyi Congress and Tennant Creek High School, and a memorandum of understanding is being drawn up between those two groups and is awaiting the return of the CEO from congress to ratify it.
Under that program, each student will have an individually tailored program, education or training, to suit their individual specific needs. We have allocated a teacher to the program, out of the 40 that we have already put on - coming out of the commitment of an extra 100 teachers that this government is providing the system in this term of government. Congress, on its part, has provided an off-campus training room, computers, transport and two youth workers to assist with literacy and numeracy support.
We believe this is a project that shows what can be achieved when you have real partnerships between government and communities working together, and we hope that it will serve as a pilot for other remote areas and regional centres throughout the Territory which have a similar cohort of students.
Another initiative for Tennant Creek students is that we are funding the installation of a state of the art broadband interactive vocational education and training delivery in the Tennant Creek Training Centre. This deployment complements the Northern Territory government’s $3.6m investment in the roll-out of the Interactive Distance e-Learning project throughout the NT. The training centre will be equipped with the necessary hardware to receive full video interactive instructions from studios in Darwin and Alice Springs, as well as from TAFE providers throughout the Territory. It will be installed in the centre’s open learning area and will be capable of operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week for registered users. It is one of the first sites to undertake this type of group and team learning, instead of one-to-one connection. That is just one part of a major upgrade of the training centre’s information and communications technology. The current computing facilities are also being completely replaced with 30 new student computers. These new resources are part of government’s IT provision to training centres, and will be kept up to industry standard through regular hardware and software updates. As part of the Territory-wide program …
Madam SPEAKER: Minister, would you wind up your answer? This is a very long answer.
Mr STIRLING: I certainly will, Madam Speaker. It is an important story for the Barkly. As part of that program, Tennant Creek Training Centre ICT infrastructure will also be upgraded so students, training organisations and centre staff can take advantage of both Northern Territory Education Network and the Department of Employment, Education and Training’s corporate network.
We have a responsibility to these kids. We want to engage them back into the system; we do not want their parents sending them interstate. That is the level of commitment we are making in the Barkly. We hope it will all come together, and we will apply those same sorts of ideas right throughout the Territory where we think necessary.
Madam SPEAKER: While the member for Port Darwin is walking to the podium, can I ask anyone in the gallery if they have a Toyota, registration No 620 381? I feel like I am in the casino or something, but you have left your lights on and, if it is yours, I suggest you go and turn them off.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016