$50,000 Inaugural Institutional Award for Services to Indigenous Students
Last year the Federal Minister for Education, Science and Training, Dr Brendan Nelson established the inaugural Neville Bonner Award recognising excellence in Indigenous university teaching. The annual award offers the recipients a grant of $40,000 to be used to further the winner’s career in teaching or to assist with support materials for teaching activities.
In response to recommendations by the NTEU, the Minister this week announced the establishment of an additional award, the inaugural ‘Institutional Award for Services to Indigenous Students’. The award provides the recipient with a grant of $50,000, a trophy and certificate. The grant is payable to the winning institution as part of their operating grant and can only be used to further develop the services for which the award is given. The announcement of the award comes after NTEU Indigenous delegates from across Australia met in Melbourne on 5th & 6th April 2003 to discuss Indigenous higher education policy and programs.
This year the delegates recommended that an award for the Indigenous Higher Education Centre of the Year be established that recognises the critical role they play in providing support services essential to improving recruitment, retention and completion rates for Indigenous students. As some universities do not have an Indigenous Higher Education Centre, the award is for the provision of support services so as not to exclude these Institutions being nominated for the award.
The announcement of this new award brings the total grants up for grabs to $90,000 annually and will represent a opportunity for the recipients to further develop a broad range of programs that provide real outcomes, through research, support programs and scholarship, specifically benefiting Indigenous people. To this end we encourage all our eligible NTEU Indigenous members to nominate as we do for non-member Indigenous staff, and wish all Indigenous people and Institutions applying, the very best of luck.
Nominations for both the above awards are now open and will close on 11th July 2003 after which the selection committee will make its recommendations to the Minister on 8th September 2003. Application documents for both awards are available in the Indigenous News section of this website. GOOD LUCK!
For more information contact
Joel Wright, NTEU Indigenous
Officer
ph 03 9254 1910, jwright@nteu.org.au