Maningrida CEC wins award for promoting equity and diversity
Monday 5 December 2005
Maningrida Community Education Centre has been recognised for its innovative approach to promoting equity and diversity to its stakeholders.
The remote school collected a major prize at the Office of the Commissioner for Public Employment’s (OCPE) annual equity and diversity awards in Darwin last week.
The award-winning entry Maningrida CEC Uses Technology to Promote Equity and Diversity featured a variety of technologies the school uses to provide an equitable educational service to parents and the community. These included digital reporting to parents, BRACS television transmission into Maningrida homes, a web-based policy development, and Interactive Distance Learning to increase educational opportunities to Homelands Learning Centre students.
Principal Lyn Hollow said: “It’s a terrific accolade for our staff without whose commitment and hard work none of these initiatives would be possible.”
Ms Hollow said one of Maningrida CEC’s major challenges was to engage the Indigenous community on educational issues and the progress of their children.
“We found that the use of technology has become a means of providing and accessing information about complex issues in interesting and exciting ways.
“One of the ways we do this is by producing digital report cards that allow us to provide meaningful information to parents and family members on a child’s educational progress.”
Ms Hollow said many of Maningrida’s Indigenous teaching staff had commented on the advantages of digital reporting over the old paper reports.
“They have become more involved in preparing the reports and they are better able to discuss a child’s development with parents.”
Ms Hollow said Maningrida CEC would continue to strive for both the sustainability of and future improvements in each of the initiatives.
The Department of Employment, Education and Training’s Financial Services Division’s submission Achieving A Family Friendly Skilled and Diverse Workplace received a commendation in the Open category.
The submission demonstrated the flexible work practices the division deploys to recruit, develop, train and retain qualified and experienced staff.