MICHAEL Nayler says it is great to see so many Queensland Catholic secondary schools are part of the Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Foundation program, which supports student educational costs in Year 11 and 12.
The former Catholic school principal and QATSIF secretariat director said the foundation broke its previous scholarship record this year.
He said they also broke their record for the number of participating students elected to leadership roles in their schools.
QATSIF is Australia’s largest secondary school Indigenous scholarship program and is currently supporting 4300 Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.
It supports 867 across 84 Queensland Catholic Schools.
Across QATSIF’s 15 years, the Foundation has supported 18,800 young people or about seven per cent of Queensland’s total Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population with their secondary education.
The program had strong results, too.
Mr Nayler said the students in the program were achieving better results than their non-Indigenous peers.
He hoped that the positive expectations would inspire younger Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to “dream big”.
Mr Nayler said he was grateful to be allowed to play a small part in helping Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to achieve and was “constantly inspired by their success stories, incredible determination, resilience, and efforts”.
“I am blessed to have the support of so many wonderful elders and especially Aunty Ruth Hegarty, our QATSIF Patron,” he said.
“Having spent my entire teaching career in Catholic schools, I am always pleased to see that almost all Queensland Catholic schools are part of our program.
“When our schools take the time to learn about the richness of our First Nations peoples, their history and cultures then all students, their families and the wider community benefit.
“It’s time for all Australians to embrace, learn and be proud of our country’s 65,000 plus year history and to hear the truth about some of the more shameful aspects of colonisation.”
QATSIF was established in 2008 to ensure any interest from unspent Indigenous wage reparation money was made available to help Indigenous young people.
This money was used to help close the gap between learning outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students.
In Australia, currently only 65 per cent of First Nations students complete Year 12, compared with 80.6 per cent for all Queensland students.
In 2022, 96 per cent of QATSIF students who finished their program completed year 12.
