Welfare stretcher at bottom of cliff

Students attending the NT's 62 Aboriginal schools (known as learning centres and community education centres) are even further disadvantaged. These schools lack basic facilities, have a separate "Indigenous curriculum" and are staffed by fly-in, fly-out teachers or untrained teacher aides.

Few students in these schools achieve results beyond the level of a Year 1 student. Seventeen-year-olds are leaving school with the reading age of a six or seven-year-old. This is an almost insurmountable gap to be overcome.

If the Rudd Government's target of having an additional 100,000 Indigenous Australians in employment is to be achieved, then there needs to be a real understanding of the gaps in ability and the level of support needed.

Work readiness training and literacy and numeracy programs are "ambulance at the bottom of the cliff" policies. What is needed is a complete overhaul of the education system that has seen so many Indigenous young people fall off the cliff in the first place.