Closing the Gap implementation plan announced by the federal government
On 5 August the federal government released the first Closing the Gap implementation plan and committed more than $1 billion in funding to help support the achievement of the Closing the Gap targets.
The plan highlights the practical actions taken across federal and state governments to support the four priority reforms - shared decision-making, building the community-controlled sector, transforming government organisations and shared access to regional data.
The measures announced in the plan are focused on new areas in the National Agreement that require early investment, including early childhood, school education and culture and language.
Early education measures include:
- delivering initiatives to lift the participation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in quality and culturally appropriate early childhood education and care services
- $160 million in new funding to ensure the best start in life for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, through initiatives such as the Healthy Mums and Healthy Bubs program, the Community Child Care Fund, the Connected Beginnings Program and the Early Years Education Program.
The federal government is also investing $126 million to improve school education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students particularly in reading, mathematics, attendance and school completion.
The new measures include:
- $75 million to build three new remote boarding schools in Western Australia and the Northern Territory under the innovative Studio Schools model
- $26 million to create partnerships between high-performing city schools and regional and remote schools which will improve leadership, teacher practice, and student outcomes
- $10 million to implement targeted teaching practices and increase attendance in remote WA schools, drawing on the proven success of the Kimberley Schools Project
- $8 million to grow the MultiLit (Making Up Lost Time in Literacy) program, which delivers proven, phonics-based reading instruction in primary schools
- $5 million to expand the pilot run by Good to Great Schools Australia, bringing total funding to $10.8m, which is improving teacher practice and reading outcomes through explicit instruction
- investing in the Commonwealth’s existing Indigenous Languages and Arts program and funding for additional language centres to protect the most at-risk Indigenous languages.
Minister for Education and Youth Alan Tudge said the investment is focused on programs that have already shown significant positive impacts on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students' results.
“This additional money is deliberately aimed at scaling up practices that work, such as phonics and explicit instruction,” Mr Tudge said in a media release.
“The evidence is there that it does make a difference and so we are confident that thousands of children will improve their learning as a result of this.
“If we don’t close the gap at preschool and school, then we will struggle to do so in other areas," he said.