Sarah Ferguson presents Australia's premier daily current affairs program, delivering agenda-setting public affairs journalism and interviews that hold the powerful to account. Plus political analysis from Laura Tingle.
KIRSTIE WELLAUER, REPORTER: Class has just started at Jervis Bay Primary School located on Yuin Country on the New South Wales south coast.TEACHER: Alright here we go, are we ready?
LANA READ, JERVIS BAY SCHOOL PRINCIPAL: I guess with things like their physical well-being and their health, we are looking for their general readiness to actually just be at school for a full school day. Half of non-Indigenous kids were considered on track but for First Nations children it’s only 34 per cent.If they're not socially mature, then we might find that there's a lot more issues with them relating to their peers or sorting out issues or problems.KIRSTIE WELLAUER: Most of the students who go to this school are Aboriginal, so their teacher takes the advice of a cultural consultant.In the Northern Territory, just under half of non-Indigenous kids were deemed developmentally ready.
CATHERINE LIDDLE: Now that is failure by governments to invest in the right set of criteria, into the right type of service delivery and to move at the speed that it needs to move at. While Anne Aly admitted more needs to be done and that most progress is being seen where governments are working in partnership with First Nations organisations and communities.Four and a half years ago they moved from the remote APY lands in South Australia into temporary housing here in town so that their kids could go to school.
NICOLE KUNOTH HAMPTON: There are little routines there, you know and how she communicates with the educators and just English words. All of that stuff. Counting, they do A, B, C, they do the one, two, three. LIAM REID: I think we do need more programs that will target these kids with health conditions that are going to affect them later on in life.
KIRSTIE WELLAUER: For workers like Samara, it is not just about supporting the kids, but also their parents.
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