The battle for higher expectations
by Lisa George
Left to right: Jean Westerhout, Manager, Leadership Academy and Youth Programs, Cape York Institute (CYI); Preben Mindamarra, Manager, Higher Expectations Program, CYI and John Wenitong, National Indigenous Education Officer, CYI with SVA Consulting’s Lisa George.
In early 2008, SVA Consulting was approached by Macquarie Group Foundation to assist in reviewing one of its flagship investments, the Higher Expectations Program (HEP). HEP is a scholarship program based in Cairns (at the Cape York Institute) that recruits academically talented students from remote communities in Cape York and sponsors them to attend boarding schools in Queensland for Years 8-12 with the objective of continuing on to tertiary education. At the time of the engagement, the greatest challenge for the program was student retention, though it was still achieving higher retention rates than the schools in Cape York. The question for the funder and program staff was how could HEP strengthen its program to retain a greater percentage of its students?
As soon as I arrived in Cairns, I was sat down to have a ‘yarn’ with John Wenitong and Preben Mindamarra who run HEP. John and Preben knew that before we could begin working together we had to hear each other’s personal stories as a first step to building our professional relationship.
At first John and Preben introduced me to everyone as ‘The Evaluator.’ I was self-conscious about appearing as a menacing consultant sent to review the program on behalf of a funder. But their willingness to get straight into the work and enthusiasm for tackling challenging issues eased my mind. I consciously tried to demonstrate my intended role in this consulting engagement: to lend support and extra brainpower to find creative and useful solutions to problems they already knew the program was facing. I knew they understood and embraced that when we started having working lunches and limiting tea breaks!
The best part of the work was meeting the inspiring young people supported by HEP to attend boarding schools across Queensland. Some of them had never been more than a stone’s throw away from home and yet gave up the comfort and familiarity of their remote communities to study in ‘the big smoke’. It’s no wonder that homesickness was the number one reason students dropped out of the program. However of the students I met who did persevere, it was clear that their connection to John, Preben and the rest of the HEP team was crucial to alleviating their intense longing for home and family.
‘When is Preben coming down and taking us to the movies again?’ one girl asked. A minute later she had already forgotten about it when another student began describing some of the fun aspects of being a boarder. That moment crystallised for me how difficult a task the HEP team had. On the one hand, they were entrusted as caretakers for these children who depended on them for their happiness and as a substitute for their families, while simultaneously developing their independence and resilience. It is a difficult balance to strike and yet somehow the HEP formula works.
Once I met the students, I realised why Preben and John were so open and even eager to work with ‘The Evaluator’. One of them remarked: ‘It’s all for these kids because if I fail, I let them down and they don’t get a second chance where they come from.’ The pressure to succeed and improve the lives of these children is intense and palpable. This is the real-world battle that the HEP team fight every day and it’s a privilege to be at their side for some of it.
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