TEACHING POTENTIAL
A PALM Island school principal is attempting to shift an ingrained culture of poor health and unemployment to give younger generations a fighting chance at success.
In less than six months, Bwgcolman Community School principal Beresford Domic has strategised ways to give his students the best possible start to life.
Mr Domic is trying to boost attendance from 69.3 per cent to 90 per cent, providing incentives to students to meet that target.
Any student who records a 100 per cent attendance rate will get a $ 150 voucher for their family to spend on food, gas and power.
Mr Domic said he was able to lift attendance at his former school, Woorabinda State School west of Gladstone, from 70 per cent to 90 per cent. “There’s no one strategy, you’re using multiple strategies,” he said.
Mr Domic said there was a “fair bit of work” in negotiating with the community.
“It’s always difficult but it’s a really positive community,” he said.
“The children are really responsive, the council is very progressive and the families are very supportive.”
Mr Domic said everything the school was striving for related to Closing the Gap.
“We’re making sure that the students are healthy and happy and we have a culture of learning,” he said. “We’re about literacy, numeracy and jobs – that to me equals improved quality of life.
“The council has said they would make sure community events didn’t interfere with student attendance, any distractions that can interrupt that impacts on our ability to deliver a quality service.”
Bwgcolman Community School has also partnered with Palm Island Shire Council to deliver schoolbased apprenticeships.
Mr Domic said two students had signed up. “( Students) have to have over 90 per cent attendance, prefer- ably 95 per cent,” he said.
“One of the main things is around work ethics – but if you’ve got 80 per cent unemployment in the community that means that 80 per cent of the kids don’t know what work ethics looks like.
“One of our strategies we’re really working hard on is the pre- prep program.
“Fifty- three per cent of indigenous people ( on Palm Island) are under 25. “If we can get good habits in the early years they can hopefully carry that through into their adult life.” Indigenous leader Warren Mundine visited Palm Island this week to help residents get work through a Federal Government entrepreneurial program. Mr Mundine analysed ways in which the com- munity could capitalise on existing infrastructure.
“There’s a whole bunch of things that people are doing – one woman is running her own shuttle to the airport,” Mr Mundine said, adding that since visiting the community in 2004, the island had become a different world.
“Residents could teach scuba diving, bush walks and cultural tours,” he said.
“People have a fear of risk but a business is risk.
“We want to keep working with people to get them through their failures.”