Attendance

The table below details attendance and participation rates over an eighteen month ending June 2004 at Shepherdson College main campus and homelands.

Homeland Attendance Patterns @ 6/2004
.	Percentage of students with less than 75% attendance	Percentage of students with 75% to 84% attendance	Percentage of students with 85% to 94% attendance	Percentage of students with greater than 95% attendance	Participation Rate: Number of students attending as % of possible enrolments
Djurranalpi	incomplete records	incomplete records	incomplete records	incomplete records	incomplete records
Donydji	0%	6%	67%	27%	100%
Ban'thula	incomplete records	incomplete records	incomplete records	incomplete records	incomplete records
Måpuru	5%	14%	48%	33%	100%
Matamata	12%	55%	33%	0%	100%
Mirrngatja	0%	0%	0%	100%	100%
Rorru	incomplete records	incomplete records	incomplete records	incomplete records	incomplete records
Shepherdson College	65%	16%	12%	7%	42%
Explanatory Notes: 1. Participation rate is the number of children actually enrolled in the location where they live. This figure is extremely high in homelands and very low at the hub campus of Shepherdson College, as the majority of children living in the Galiwin'ku township are not enrolled at school. 2. Attendance records may indicate that Homeland students are missing school, this is not because they are truant, but rather that they are absent from the homeland for various reasons including shopping and ceremony. Our records indicate that every day all children attend school in the homelands. This is not the case at the Shepherdson College hub campus in the Galiwin'ku community where at any one time about 10% of possible students are attending school.

Reasons for exceptionally high attendance and exceptionally high participation rates rates:

Strong traditional leadership guides and directs home-land life

ancestral links with the ancestral land means homeland parents can see a future for their children, and so encourage them to go to school. (Studies around the ancestor Djuranydjura)

children are away from many of the Western distractions, peers and influences of town life such as petrol sniffing, marijuana, discos, youth suicide, domestic violence, teenage pregnancy, sexual assault.

parents have greater control and influence on their children

children are freer and more independent (Thee warraga project)

Homeland students and parents have greater confidence in the future

Reasons for low level succes with NTCF benchmarks:

extremely limited access to qualified teachers with fluent English

IDL not available to Homeland Learning Centre students

Assistant Teachers In-Charge of homeland schools are not given real authority and access to email, computers and other technology.

Latis does not cover Homeland Learning Centres

No DEET implemenation strategy covering Assistant Teacher professional and career development

DEET does not have a policy for homeland schooling, (there is a draft 1993 policy)

No policy for homelands to become small schools, Mapuru letter (Feb 2003)

What is a Homeland

02 -04 Att. Patterns

2004 Enrolments

Teacher Development

Lighthouse: Coop

Secondary Provision