Having worked as a teacher in remote communities in the NT for the last three and a half years, I have seen and been a part of many of the issues you are all discussing. Like most issues in Indigenous communities there are no qucik fix solutions. Definately one of the main problems is finding quality teachers, within this short time frame that I have been working in this situtaion I have seen a huge turn over in teaching staff in the two schools that I have taught at. The first in a space of two years had 4 teaching principals, it was only a two teacher school. The second school where my husband and I have been for one and half years as seen two teaching principals already, again only a small school of three staff. In both of these schools I have seen truley incompetent teachers and the havoc they have caused within the classroom. So, much so that some students have come close to emotional breakdowns. The problem is that there are no teachers out there willing to teach remote, and those that are usually have no insight into what it takes to live and work in these situations. The other major problem I believe is the parents lack of responsibilty when it comes to sending their kids to school, the reasons I hear for this lack of attendance are inexcusable. They were too tired, didn't have clean colthes etc. The reason they are too tired is beacuse they are are up all night listening too music that blares untill the earlier hours of the morning or live in close proximity to those that disrupt others. In our first community, despite being dry, alscohol abuse was huge. There was a pub outside the community 20 minutes walk away, so constant fighting was a daily part of our student's lives. These students already face tremendous stresses in their lives, it is sloely the responsibility of their parents to start making changes. We have been making excuses for too long.

I don't pretend to have any of the answers, but was glad to see the Howard Government finally doing something. Not that I agree with the way that it has been handled. Bring on Noel Pearson's ideolgies I say. I do agree that there is a place for bilingual education, but again this has to be handled and resourced in a particular way. In a majority of schools we are already running strong literacy programs, AL (again only if the teacher implementing the program is any good) and we are seeing strong results with those students that attend regularly. It is time for our Aboriginal Australians to start making an effort, ( some are, and we are seeing huge success with their kids) and to break the dependency cycle they have been reliant on for two long.