Australian Training Award Winner 2008Last night at the Australian Training Awards, held in Darwin at the Convention Centre, Group Training Northern Territory and its partners won the prestigious Training Initiative Award for 2008.

Our partners include:

  • Power and Water and CDU for the ESO program
  • The NLC, NTCA, DPIFM and CDU for the IPP program
  • DCIS and key NTG agencies for the Jobs Plan 3 initiative
  • PFES, NRETA, DPIFM, along with partner schools Marrara Christian School, Kormilda and St Johns and Training GTNT for the remote School based program
  • DEEWR and DET for their finding support

Together we are all about apprenticeships and traineeships that leads to real jobs employing Indigenous people in their own communities or the location of their choice.

It started with a small program in 2003, with participants from 15 Top End remote communities. The program supported these remote Indigenous people to gain the skills and qualifications to manage their communities’ water, sewerage and power services.
 
In 2005, 21 participants completed their apprenticeships successfully and obtained a Certificate II in Electrotechnology Remote Area Essential Services Operation.

Since then, not only has GTNT expanded the ESO program significantly, the organisation has taken this model of service delivery and applied it to a range of other programs to assist remote Indigenous people into employment.

This model has been used successfully with a number of different training programs with adaptations made according to individual requirements. Some of the main programs using this model are:

  • Essential Service Operators (ESO) program
  • Indigenous Pastoral Project (IPP) program
  • School Based Apprentices in the bush program
  • Jobs Plan III Apprentices and Trainees

The IPP program represents a well constructed pathway from training to long-term employment for Indigenous people. Because the participants gain not only skills but qualifications they have the ability to move between stations with relative ease and are presented with a developed career ladder from jackeroo to head stockman and beyond.
(Dr Brain J. Heim CDU)

What challenges do we face?
The challenge that GTNT faces is simple – ensuring remote Indigenous people have access to real jobs for real money. Finding solutions to the challenge is not so simple! The difficulty of establishing long-term employment in remote communities is widely known. In most communities, the vast majority of local jobs are held by non-Indigenous personnel. Often, the skills to work in these jobs can only be gained by leaving the community. This has been a barrier for remote Indigenous people, who for many reasons can be reluctant to leave.

If I could look in to future it would be great if all the indigenous communities around Australia could be run by the people that live in the community. Or even better to go on to something bigger and better like working at a big power station in a major city.
(Reginald King Walangeri Ngumpinku)

Where to from here?
GTNT has recognised the need to do more about employment in the bush and is committed to using this model to help more remote Indigenous people get local jobs with a real wage. GTNT is exploring new programs and options to make this happen.

For more information please contact Lisa Dodds, Marketing Manager, Group Training Northern Territory 89412112 or lisa.dodds@gtnt.com.au