A model education system

Unhappy with the traditional schooling system, Andrew Plastow founded Ngutu College to promote equity, diversity and social justice for all children – with a particular focus on education for Aboriginal children. With the help of a 2024 BankSA Foundation Inspire Grant, Ngutu College is now focused on helping Aboriginal people gain teaching qualifications.

 

In 2021, Andrew Plastow left the public school system in South Australia and founded Ngutu College, an independent, not-for-profit college on Kaurna Country in Woodville North. Ngutu College places importance on the arts and creative disciplines alongside traditional subjects such as English and mathematics and focuses on learning outcomes for individuals rather than collective results such as NAPLAN.

 

Children are “exposed to their passions and work from these strengths,” says Plastow. 

“Some thrive with instruments in hand, some outside, some through their authoring, others through dance or robotics or technology or cooking.”

 

At Ngutu, there is a focus on keeping learning playful, embracing childhood and supporting adolescence. “We work from each child’s point of nudge, not pushing a child (or holding up a child) to stay with everyone else. We embrace learning opportunities everywhere, not just the classroom,” says Plastow, who felt the principles of public schooling, such as equity, diversity, social justice and accessibility, could be better achieved at an independent school.

 

Three years in, and the College has grown from a cohort of 90 in its first year, to more than 260 children and young people in 2024, including 47% Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander children.

 

Now Plastow has a new focus: helping Aboriginal people gain teaching qualifications. He says many Aboriginal children will go through their 13 years of schooling never seeing an Aboriginal teacher. “If you don’t see what is possible, it is hard to imagine it as possible,” he says.

 

As a 2024 Inspire Grant recipient, supported by BankSA Foundation, Ngutu College will receive $150,000 over three years to help address barriers to Aboriginal educators attaining qualifications, and supporting young Aboriginal staff members to become qualified teachers. 

 

“Setting up the model will see them able to do their teaching practice at Ngutu in a culturally safe space where they are surrounded by other Aboriginal adults and young people,” explains Plastow. “When they graduate, they will have the opportunity to accept teaching roles at Ngutu. Other Aboriginal people will be employed to replace them when they have their study days, so they will see the possibility for themselves to follow in a second round – and perpetually.”

 

Plastow says the first four teachers in the program at Ngutu are sharing their experiences with children and young people at the college. “This means our young people are seeing this as possible and some will therefore follow suit,” he says.

 

“It is really exciting to see the vision come to fruition as well as aspects that are happening that are beyond the vision. It’s important to keep building and strengthening what we are doing and making sure that it leads to real equity beyond the school gates for our young people.”