The Remote School Attendance Strategy (RSAS): Why invest in a strategy that reduces attendance?

In late 2013, under the leadership of Prime Minister Abbott, the Australian Government announced a new policy designed to increase attendance rates in remote community schools—the Remote School Attendance Strategy (RSAS). The model assumed that employing local people in the program, which was design...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education
Main Authors: John Guenther, Samuel Osborne, Stephen Corrie, Lester-Irabinna Rigney, Kevin Lowe
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit, The University of Queensland 2022
Subjects:
attendance
remote education
policy interventions
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education
success
Special aspects of education
LC8-6691
Abbott
First Nations
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.55146/ajie.v51i2.35
https://doaj.org/article/3e9cb9305c484e999d7517ae880bfd6f
Description
Summary:In late 2013, under the leadership of Prime Minister Abbott, the Australian Government announced a new policy designed to increase attendance rates in remote community schools—the Remote School Attendance Strategy (RSAS). The model assumed that employing local people in the program, which was designed to support parents get their children to school, would yield significant improvements and consequently improve educational outcomes. After a slight initial increase in school attendance rates, RSAS schools have seen average attendance rates decline since 2016, which now stand more than eight percentage points lower than at commencement. This article analyses My School data for Very Remote Aboriginal schools, showing how the RSAS school attendance results compare with similar non-RSAS schools. We question why the Australian Government continues to invest in a program that is not meeting its objectives, asking, what went wrong?. We do this by critically analysing 36 policy-related documents, looking for ideological clues that show why the government continues to invest in the program and how it sees it as “successful”. We conclude by raising ethical and accountability concerns about the RSAS, which lacks evidence of attendance improvement, and which potentially causes harm to its objects: First Nations students.

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