Jobs Gap Widens For Indigenous Workers
26 May 2014 at 11:29 am
Primary education, Year 12 attainment and post-school qualifications for Indigenous students have been on the rise but employment is not improving, the latest report on Indigenous reform from the COAG Reform Council has revealed.
The report, launched in Canberra, also revealed that falls in school attendance were larger and more widespread than improvements, and high school numeracy results had worsened.
COAG Reform Council Chairman John Brumby said governments had made some promising gains in education but not in employment.
“It is great to see Indigenous students’ reading scores lifting across all year levels, a jump in Year 12 or equivalent attainment, and more Indigenous people achieving post-school qualifications,” Brumby said.
“What’s concerning though is that these education gains aren’t improving employment—we found that since 2008, employment outcomes for Indigenous Australians did not improve in any State or Territory.”
COAG said its target was to halve the gap in employment outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians by 2018 but over the past five years, this gap had widened.
Brumby said the report’s results emphasise an ongoing need for COAG to strengthen its performance reporting and accountability framework for Indigenous reform.
“While we are pleased to find successes in this report, we are wary that there is still hard work to be done in some areas. This is the time to regroup and to see these reforms through,” he said.
To view Indigenous Reform 2012-13: Five years of performance, click here.
The COAG Reform Council was established in 2006 to assist COAG to drive its reform agenda.
