NT:Remote indigenous students complete Year 12 in home community

AAP General News (Australia)
12-19-2003
NT:Remote indigenous students complete Year 12 in home community

By Karen Michelmore

KALKARINGI, NT, Dec 19 AAP - Most Australians expect to be able to attend a school
near their homes.

But for students in the remote Aboriginal community of Kalkaringi, 460km south-west
of Katherine in the Northern Territory, it is a dream come true.

Three indigenous students at a remote school today became the first in NT to complete
their Year 12 studies in their home communities.

Rhonda Rankin, 23, Lianna Brown, 17 and Meschach Paddy, 21, are the first to say it
hasn't been easy, battling isolation, a lack of facilities and personal tragedy.

But their achievements have been described by the NT Government as a landmark for indigenous
education in the Territory, with the three becoming instant role models for other indigenous
students.

Ms Brown received a double honour, achieving the highest mark of any indigenous student
in the NT this year.

Ms Brown hopes to study cultural tourism at Flinders University in Adelaide and Ms
Rankin hopes to study nursing at the same university.

Mr Paddy hopes to study visual arts at Charles Darwin University.

"I feel good and proud to have achieved what I have achieved," Ms Rankin said.

"It's been hard .... but I feel good that I'm a role model to the younger students
here at my school."

Ms Rankin's family was also extremely proud of the achievement.

"She's the first one in our family to graduate and we are very proud of her."

Kalkaringi Community Education Centre last year became the first remote NT school to
offer a comprehensive secondary education program that includes Year 11 and 12.

The program is now being rolled out across several other NT communities.

Kalkaringi's success is largely due to the work of principal George Hewitson and his
wife and senior teacher Robyn who helped the first remote South Australian students achieve
Year 12, in the community of Indulkana about 120 kilometres south of the SA-NT border.

"I'm not here to say I told you so but hopefully it proves it can happen in other places,"

Mr Hewitson said.

He said the students faced several challenges that their peers in bigger cities took for granted.

"We had to make our own science lab outside," he said. "They had to wait for mail and
wait for the computers to work then they'd break down and that kind of thing.

"Because they are out here their families are very transient at times and they go off to town.

"A couple of have had tragedies during the year .... and that nearly did them in."

Mr Hewitson said another challenge was having no role models to look up too.

However, they have inspired other children in the community to stay at school.

"We have got a current mob of secondary kids who really really want to go on and do
well and their aspirations now aren't to be a health worker or to work in the store ...

it's to be a doctor or a teacher or a police officer.

"Education's the only way forward."

AAP km/bd/drp/de

KEYWORD: STUDENTS (PICS AVAILABLE)

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