Closing the Gap Indigenous Education Grants

Purpose

CTG - Indigenous Education provides supplementary Indigenous-specific funding to schools for schools to implement place-based strategies to 'Close the Gap' as determined by the following targets.

The national Indigenous targets are:

halve the gap for Indigenous students in reading, writing and numeracy within a decade
at least halve the gap for Indigenous students in Year 12 or equivalent attainment rates by 2020.

The departmental Indigenous headline targets

The targets are:

halve the gap in Year 3 reading and numeracy by 2012
close the gap in student attendance by 2013
close the gap in Year 12 retention by 2013.

The Year 3 reading and numeracy 2012 target has been disaggregated to provide regional targets which are:

halve the gap - Far North Queensland and North Queensland
close the gap - in Year 3 reading - South Coast
close the gap - in Year 3 numeracy - South Coast, Moreton, Mackay-Whitsunday
close the gap by - remaining regions.

Expenditure guidelines

To provide for future data extraction, expenditure is to be recorded in OneSchool against OneSchool cost centre/s LSU*, SSU* and/or WSU*, where * is a school determined character A-Z or a number 0-9. This 'SU' coding logic should not be used for other school program budgets.

CTG - Indigenous Education funds are to be used by schools to invest in the following initiatives that have been identified to provide a small number of targeted initiatives for regions and schools to adopt and modify where necessary to meet their specific place-based needs.

These initiatives and associated priority areas are designed as proactive interventions (deliberately intervening in order to influence future retention and attendance and prevent undesirable education outcomes). They identify what the system or whole school can do to maximise learning rather than concentrating on or waiting for poor education performance.

It is intended that this is the definitive list of initiatives that schools will undertake using these supplementary specific Indigenous education funds.

The intent of the initiatives will not change; however, at a school level the scope will vary depending on the school's unique circumstances and with that the level of investment.

Lines of service - foundation learning with a focus on literacy and numeracy

Initiatives/priority areas include:

parental engagement in the early phase of learning
Indigenous students who have English as a second language
whole school approach for improving learning in literacy & numeracy
numeracy intervention
Indigenous education support services.

Lines of service - health and physical activity as a precondition to learning

Initiatives/priority areas include student health and wellbeing.

Lines of service - participation to employment

Initiatives/priority areas include:

stability, mobility & attendance
transition support services
high expectations & aspirations alternative pathways
residential colleges
leadership in education for Indigenous students.

Lines of service - culture and enterprise

Initiatives/priority areas include culture and engagement.

Duration of program

Ongoing

Policy reference

Closing the Gap Education Strategy

Closing the Gap Indigenous Education Grants (YNSU)

Allocation of funds

Funds will be allocated to regions to distribute to schools based on the proposed strategies the schools plan to implement.

Some regions will be distributing funds and in other regions schools will receive their school grant based on semester 1 allocation.

Payment details

Payment details for Closing the Gap
Payment	During month of	Proportion of allocation paid
Semester 1	March	50% of annual allocation
Semester 2	August	50% of annual allocation

Performance reporting

Principals are to report on student outcomes as part of performance meetings with Executive Directors Schools, Regional Executive Directors and Assistant Director-General Indigenous Education and Training as appropriate.

Contact

Please contact your Regional Finance Manager.

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This page was last reviewed on 22 Oct 2013