The University of Queensland is Scoring Goals to increase the number of Indigenous health and physical education teachers in Queensland.
Scoring Goals is a program that brings together four sport-related pathways to promote health and physical education teaching as a career choice for young Indigenous high school students.
The pathways include UQ’s Indigenous Youth Sports Program, Pathway to Success NRL program, Indigenous school-based traineeships and sport scholarship programs, and UQ’s College Tertiary Preparation Program.
Project leader Professor Doune Macdonald, from UQ’s School of Human Movement Studies, said the initiative provides an opportunity to use sport to educate Indigenous high school students about career possibilities after school.
“Sport is a significant positive medium for Indigenous students to connect to schooling and career ambitions and is a hook that leads to many aspirations and achievements,” Professor Macdonald said.
“The Scoring Goals initiative aims to build on the students’ interest in sport and health; expose them to teaching health, sport and physical education as a career option, and support the aspirations of Indigenous students to attend university.
“As part of the initiative, students will be mentored to help them qualify for enrolment into UQ’s Bachelor of Health, Sport and Physical Education.
“There is a long-standing fit between Indigenous sport and health, and health and physical education teaching as a career, and this has been largely overlooked as a specific pathway into teaching.”
The project is supported by the More Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Teachers Initiative (MATSITI), a government-funded national project developing strategies to increase the number and retention of Indigenous teachers at schools.
“This project has the potential to make a significant contribution towards the development of more Indigenous teachers to enrich the learning experience of all Australian children, and in particular for Indigenous children,” Professor Macdonald said.
Scoring Goals is a joint initiative between the School of Human Movement Studies and UQ’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit.
Media: Helen Burdon, +61 7 3365 7436, 0412 744 437, h.burdon@uq.edu.au
