Non-government Indigenous boarding schools

In February 2016, the Department of Education 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 Government 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 per cent of funding was from the Australian Government (through Abstudy and other grants) and 26 per cent 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; and
• difficulty with the additional costs associated the Indigenous boarding cohorts access to healthcare services and the need for better coordination.