No bus, no school for Indigenous children living in remote NSW
Students in an Indigenous community in far northwest NSW have missed years of education due to limited transport in a village where almost no one can drive to the nearest school an hour away
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Students in one of NSW’s most remote Indigenous communities have missed years of education because of a cancelled bus, in a village where almost no one can drive them to the nearest school an hour away.
In Clara Hart Village, a tiny 80-person community outside Enngonia in the state’s far northwest, education effectively ends at Year 6.
The town, 40km from the Queensland border and home to only a primary school and a pub, used to have a bus to the nearest high school in Bourke, 90km away – but its funding was cut years ago.
“Some of the kids are still here that are in high school and they’ve missed out on the last year or two,” said Murrawarri Local Aboriginal Land Council CEO, Aunty Taryn Kelly.
More than 30 children live in Clara Hart village, with as many as 10 high school-aged children facing a daily 180km round-trip to the nearest high school in Bourke. Aunty Taryn said this daily commute meant almost all of them simply dropped out.
The flow-on effects are vast. Only a small handful of the village’s residents hold a driver’s licence and a registered car, so the same missing bus that keeps the kids from school also keeps their parents from work.
“The big challenge at the moment is transport,” Aunty Taryn said. “There’s no shops out here and it’s incredibly difficult for our community to get daily essentials.”
Aunty Taryn’s niece Jolanda Kelly and her cousin Ava Shillingsworth were out playing in the red dust when The Sunday Telegraph visited.
The girls talked about how much they loved their town. Ava said she wanted to be “an aunty” when she grew up.
For both girls, unless a bus service comes to the town or they move away for school, neither would be able to access schooling beyond Year 6.
The inability of children and adults in remote Indigenous communities to get to work and school is a major issue statewide and elsewhere, with the isolation continuing a cycle of under-education, unemployment and poverty*.
Indigenous leader Warren Mundine said where school and workplaces were both out of reach, that meant no education and no jobs, leading to social breakdown and the serious issues that plague Australia’s remote communities. The fix, he said, was “plain, simple things”.
“It’s education, jobs, and everything that comes off that is resolved – crime rates go down, you have social cohesion*, your health improves, everything improves,” he said.
“You can’t have a parent sitting on a couch saying: ‘Get to school’, and they look at you and say: ‘Well, you’re just sitting around all day’.”
Bourke Shire Mayor Lachlan Ford said the council had lobbied* Transport NSW to help fund a bus service to Enngonia but part of the difficulty was finding a driver.
“Because there is no high school out there for them, they either have to move away or do it by distance and that is very difficult for the families,” Mayor Ford said. “They don’t all have computers in their houses … many of the adults are educated at very low levels.”
A Transport NSW spokesman said: “Transport continues to work with delivery partners to provide opportunities for locals to gain the necessary qualifications to help facilitate services”.
In the meantime, the town has not had a shop for 20 years, so residents carpool to Bourke for food, travelling more than an hour each way. A loaf of frozen bread at the pub cost $7 and village residents were trying to save money to build a new shop.
“It’s a big dream for us,” Aunty Taryn said.
Despite the challenges, those who leave often find themselves coming back, drawn by the striking beauty of the flat red landscape and the pull of family.
“It’s a tight-knit* community – we’re one big family here,” Aunty Taryn said.
Federal Opposition* Indigenous Affairs spokesman Julian Leeser calculated that $29.2 million across 15 grants* involving four federal agencies has flowed into Bourke Shire – a figure that does not include past funding, state government money or programs not specific to Indigenous people.
“We’ve got a 12-point gap in Indigenous school attendance,” he said. “How do you create a better future for Indigenous people if the kids can’t get to school on the bus?”
POLL
GLOSSARY
- poverty: state of being very poor and not having enough money for basic necessities
- cohesion: the state of sticking together, or (of people) being in close agreement and working well together
- lobbied: to try to persuade a politician, the government, that a law should be changed
- tight-knit: a group of people who care about each other and who are very friendly with each other
- Opposition: the party or group which has the greatest number of non-government Members in the House of Representative
- grant: an amount of money given especially by the government to a person or organisation for a special purpose
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QUICK QUIZ
- What is the population of Clara Hart Village?
- How far away is the nearest high school and in what town?
- What happens when school and work are out of reach, according to Indigenous leader Warren Mundine?
- How long has it been since the village had a shop?
- Residents who leave the village are often drawn back for what reasons?
LISTEN TO THIS STORY
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. What can be done?
Can you think of three suggestions that you could make to help high school aged kids in Clara Hart village to get the education that they need? Read the story carefully to understand the problems and think about solutions that could help kids stay in their community and keep their culture strong.
Time: allow at least 25 minutes for this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Civics and Citizenship
2. Extension
“Transport disadvantage is just as serious as other kinds of disadvantage.” Use information from the story to write paragraphs that will convince your readers that this is an extremely important issue.
Time: allow at least 40 minutes for this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Health and Physical Education, Civics and Citizenship
VCOP ACTIVITY
To sum it up
After reading the article, use your comprehension skills to summarise in a maximum of three sentences what the article is about.
Think about:
- What is the main topic or idea?
- What is an important or interesting fact?
- Who was involved (people or places)?
Use your VCOP skills to re-read your summary to make sure it is clear, specific and well punctuated.