Education Queensland has instigated, planned and supported, over a significant period of time, various programs to enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander entrants to become trained and qualified teachers. Such programs have included, for example:
However, for those Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in remote areas who had to relocate to a centralised educational facility for long periods of study, the entrance rate and subsequent success rate to full teacher qualification has been, historically, very limited. In particular, the entrance and success rate for Aboriginal people from remote areas has been extremely low.
Consideration of the above spurred investigations of alternatives. This resulted in the adoption of an aim to provide teacher education at the remote locations where people live and work. Such education had to ensure that:
The objective was to provide appropriate education for suitable applicants in remote areas, who as teachers would have the most complete base for interaction with the remote area students. The provision of teacher education at remote locations was accepted as a prime objective by both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Consultative Groups and the Department of Education.
The resultant Remote Area Teacher Education Program (RATEP) began as a joint initiative between Education Queensland (specifically the Peninsula Regional Office), the Tropical North Queensland Institute of Technical and Further Education (TNQITAFE), James Cook University of North Queensland (JCU), the Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Educational Consultative Committee (QATSIECC), the Torres Strait Islands Regional Education Committee (TSIREC), the Office of Higher Education, the Queensland Open Learning Network (QOLN) and a variety of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community councils.
The program aims to deliver teacher education courses to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students (based primarily in remote communities) through a variety of unique features and educational innovations, which include:
It is intended that graduates of the program will bring with them to the schools an in-depth knowledge of the cultural, linguistic and family backgrounds of the children they and their colleagues will be teaching.
Since the commencement of RATEP in 1990, there have been 113 graduates with teachers placed throughout Queensland. There are currently, as at May 2007, 51 students studying towards their Bachelor of Education at JCU.
To increase the pool of registered Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers available to teach in Education Queensland.
The direct clients of RATEP are those Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in regional, rural and remote communities who wish to obtain a recognised teaching qualification from a tertiary institution and have met the selection criteria listed below.
Stakeholders - individuals or groups who have an influence on, an interest in, or are affected by, RATEP - include:
The success of the program may be measured in terms of:
Checklist for Site and Student Selection
Expressions of interest for site establishment may come from schools, district offices and/or communities and should address the following key criteria:
The expressions of interest should be forwarded to the RATEP Management Committee through school principals.