Beyond institutional walls : literacy support for indigenous students at a remote high school in the Northern Territory

This paper examines how the Community Action Support (CAS) program, a collaboration between the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation (ALNF) and the University of Western Sydney (UWS), has been effectively implemented at a remote high school in the Northern Territory. The program, a School-University-Community partnership, is located within the Master of Teaching (Secondary) degree at the University of Western Sydney. It requires that pre-service teachers operate both inside and outside the formal classroom environment, providing specialised individual and small group literacy and numeracy tuition to support secondary students from disadvantaged and remote Indigenous communities. This paper, based on a case study report, outlines reasons preservice teachers gave for their participation in the program, reservations about the placement, their expectations of the program, and reflections on the overall experience of the process. Documenting the experiences of pre-service teachers engaged in this program is of particular importance to Australian education. Service learning programs like Community Action Support could be key factors in improving Indigenous literacy as well as creating a pathway to engagement in higher education and post-school employment and work.