To The POINT
With
Angela Dewan

Indigenous students on a program for success

AARON SWAN and Goondiga Edgar are two of 38 students at St Joseph’s College Hunters Hill under the school’s indigenous program.

Goondiga, in Year 10, says he dreams of becoming a pilot in the air force, or an architect.

Aaron, in Year 12, wants to become a teacher specialising in Aboriginal studies so that possibly in the future he can teach in some of the remote Aboriginal communities, in Western Australia, South Australia or the Northern Territory.

Hopefully, they’ll achieve their goals, but statistics are not on their side - the Year 12 retention rate for indigenous students is 36 per cent compared to 73 per cent for all students.

Most of the indigenous boys at St Joseph’s are from small towns where school attendance is low, youth crime rates can be high, and the financial situation of many families desperate.

Aaron was happy to leave hometown Kempsey and said what he didn’t miss about home was “the crime”.

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BOYS WITH good attendance records and who show a desire to learn are chosen to board and study at St Joseph’s.

It is difficult for many of the boys to be away from their families and communities. It could even be seen as history repeating with a modern day stolen generation.

Mark Woolford, responsible for the program, says all the boys choose to be there and are supported by their families and communities.

He says he wants to see them come out of Year 12 with their HSC. The program doesn’t want to accept anyone on a whim and see them drop out in Year 8. That, he says, doesn’t set a good role model for future indigenous students.

Goondiga and Aaron regard Craig Duncan as a role model; Craig is an Aboriginal appointed by the school as an indigenous education assistant to look after the boys pastorally and organise cultural activities for them.

The boys appreciate his presence at the school because they can talk to him as a friend and as someone from a semi-remote community.

Both boys believe role models are important for indigenous youths - the achievements of role models give youth something to aim for.

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THE INDIGENOUS program at the school offers selected students an education and boarding, which usually costs about $22,000 per student. These fees are raised through public assistance, local communities, families, individual benefactors and the college.

However, St Joseph’s has recently set up a fund to raise $5 million, thereby making the program self-sustainable.

This indigenous fund is the first of its kind and has become the blueprint for the Independent Schools Indigenous Education Network, which is also raising funds for new and existing programs in other schools.

* Hunters Hill resident ANGELA DEWAN is a freelance journalist.

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