Non-government Indigenous boarding schools

In February 2016, the Department of Education and Training commissioned KPMG to conduct a review to identify whether funding provided by the Australian and Northern Territory governments is sufficient to meet the total costs associated with providing Indigenous students with a quality education in boarding schools.

The review report was published in November 2016.

Non-government Indigenous boarding schools - Review of funding arrangements PDF (1.9 MB)

Recommendations

Key findings from the report identified:

• a shortfall between the funding received from the Australian and Northern Territory governments and the costs incurred by the boarding schools in delivering their services
• any redistribution or repurposing of Northern Territory Government funding would not make up the shortfall identified
• of the government revenue attracted by boarding schools in the NT, 74% of funding was from the Australian Government (through Abstudy and other grants) and 26% from the NT Government (from the Isolated Students Education Allowance (ISEA) and other grants)
• difficulty and administrative burden in claiming Abstudy had a significant impact on the schools revenue and that there were significant variances in per student amounts received from Abstudy between schools
• difficulty with the additional costs associated the Indigenous boarding cohorts access to healthcare services and the need for better coordination.