The Government will provide $10 million over four years to support the expansion of Clontarf Academies to improve the education, life skills and employment prospects of 700 Indigenous young men in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
As part of our commitment to Closing the Gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, the Government will provide $10 million to match private and state funding for:
* six existing Clontarf Academies beyond 31 December 2008;
* six new academies from 2009-10; and
* a further three new academies from 2010-11.
The additional funding represents the first stage of a long term commitment by the Government to helping the Clontarf Foundation to expand its network of Academies throughout Australia.
This initial $10 million investment will enable Clontarf to expand its services in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and other interested states.
Clontarf academies currently operate 23 Academies in 18 locations and this funding will allow the organisation to expand its activities in Western Australia and the Northern Territory and to other interested states.
It will assist an additional 700 Indigenous young people to gain the confidence and skills to achieve at school and make a successful transition to work. This will expand Clontarf's reach from around 1,400 young people to 2,100 - a 50 percent increase in participants.
The Clontarf Academies have been successful in engaging young Indigenous men with school education. They also provide assistance to participants seeking employment or wishing to undertake post school education.
Clontarf currently has 280 students participating in Darwin and the surrounding locations. Aggregated attendance at these top end academies was better than 73% and some 90% of the students were recorded as having improved their literacy and numeracy levels.
These results demonstrate the value of the Clontarf approach to better engage young Indigenous men with school education and help in ‘closing the gap' between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.'
The Government believes that we should celebrate this success and take further advantage of the Clontarf approach by establishing additional Clontarf Academies in new locations.
The Australian Government committed $19.6 million over four years in the 2006-07 Budget for the Sporting Chance program, which includes Clontarf academies.
This announcement follows the Government's recent commitment of $20 million to the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation to provide boarding scholarships to up to 2,000 Indigenous secondary school students.