Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 2:31:50 to 2:35:44
Progress update on the First Nations Education Policy developed in partnership with Indigenous education corporations and stakeholders.
Topics: Education, First Nations, Closing the Gap
Speakers: Mr Christopher Mudford, Speaker 14
>> Yeah, we will. We'll get Charlotte to do it. Um um can I uh ask the department some questions about closing the gap if >> Thank you uh for coming um today. Um again um and Mr. Mudford again you haven't let us down with another fabulous tie. So um look I always look forward to seeing what you've got for us uh at each round of estimates. Um can can the department um tell the committee about um the first nations education um policy and um what the impol the policy is
>> Yeah absolutely. So Chris Mudford, assistant secretary first nations and closing the gap branch. Thank you senator for the question. Uh so the first nations education policy as we've talked about um previously the department's working in partnership with first nations partners uh and with states and territories and so uh our first nations partners are the national aberinal and tush islander education corporation or natiac uh the national ainal and talander principles association natifa the national aberinal and tush islander higher education consortium nati heck snake national voice for our children and the national indigenous youth education coalition or NYAK uh and we're working with those partners to develop a a policy that's a 10-year commitment to accelerate improvement in First Nations education outcomes and that uh goes across the education life cycle from early childhood education and care through schooling and then into tertiary education which obviously composes um both uh vocational education and training and the higher education sectors. And so uh we had first nations partner le engagement earlier in the year. We then moved to co-drafting uh between the department and NATC as the co-chairs of the policy working group uh and then uh informed by uh the perspectives of the five first nations partners uh as well as the evidence base that we had um developed through uh a range of engagements. We've then uh engaged through the education ministers meeting architecture. So that went through uh the schools policy group, early childhood policy group, the senior officials uh committee and then to education ministers meeting in July. Uh and we've continued that testing uh since then. So Natia coordinated with the four other partners to test the draft policy direction with uh first nations communities as well as a public consultation process and targeted stakeholder engagement that the department has um been undertaking. And we're uh doing further refinements through co-drafting at the moment and we'll um then uh take it through again our policy working group and the uh the EMM architecture as well as working with our skills colleagues in Jer
>> and with the targeted uh consultation process understand there was also um some targeted consultation at GMA. Um is there can you give us an update on on what you sort of found through that targeted consultation?
>> Yeah, thank you Senator. So uh at the GMA festival there was a a roundt discussion that was held with a number of uh attendees uh across education interests and uh the minister announced that further public consultation process uh that I mentioned that was open until the end of September. We had 117 uh responses to that and overwhelming support for the direction of the policy both from first nations and non-indigenous stakeholders and across um organizations and individuals. Uh so we uh tested across the elements of the policy uh as well as the overall direction uh and uh taking into account that feedback uh to inform the further refinements that we're doing at the