MANINGRIDA JET CENTRE
	ABN: 51 051 804 112						
                     
PMB 102 Winnellie NT 0822
              Ph: (08) 89795871
Fax: (08) 89795845
				Email: maningridajetcentre@bigpond.com

Report for The Productivity Commission
"Inquiry into the Economic effects of Ageing"

Background
Maningrida JET Centre is a Registered Training Organisation (RTO). Since 1994 the JET Centre has serviced the training needs of Maningrida and it’s homelands. The Maningrida JET Centre enters into partnerships with government agencies and other organisations on behalf of the Maningrida Community to deliver training programs and ensure that culturally appropriate community consultation is conducted. Past and present partners include the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Department of Employment Science & Training, NT Department of Education, and The Office of the Registrar of Aboriginal Corporations.
Aged Care Training
In 2003 MJET entered into an arrangement with NT Carers to deliver a series of training modules to a group of local people from the Certificate II in Community Services (Aged Care Work).
This program ran for 12 months. The original program was changed in response to the low English literacy levels of the group, and focused more on organising the daily work of the Bawinanga Aged Care team. Literacy was incorporated into the course through the development of checklists for the workers and a series of sessions exploring the nature of aged care.
Attendance was sporadic and commitment to the training fluctuated with the seasons. Sometimes we would have 8 participants, but often only one or two.
The outcomes from the training are hard to measure, but there is evidence to suggest that the team was more organised and task focused post the training experience.

Training Costs
Training is costed for this stream of study at $9.00/hour with an additional $4.00/hour for remote delivery a total of $13/hour.
The average hours for a certificate 2 level course is about 240 hours.
1 student would require about $3120.00 in funding to achieve the certificate 2. However this is not a true reflection of the real costs to the RTO. This figure is based on the premise that the majority of students will attend most training sessions however our experience in Maningrida is that for courses of this type students attend between 40-60% of classes. This necessitates a constant backwards-forwards training style that may involve the trainer deliverying the same session up to four times before all of the group achieve competancy.
In addition to this as was evidenced by the 2003 program, general literacy and schooling levels in the community are drastically low and given the current appalling school attendance rates, look set to continue into the next generation as well. In our experience it takes a minimum commitment of four hours a week for one year to get  students literacy levels up to the most basic writing and comprehension levels. This costs about $3000/student.
Further to this most of the training programs we have run that have achieved 80-100% completion rates have had a full-time mentor working with them and students have attended a prepare for work course as well.

Prepare for Work Course - 		$1500
Certificate 2 Training Delivery - 	$3120
Literacy and Numeracy Support -	$3000
Fulltime Mentor - 	$5000 (based on a group of 8, mentor salary    
$40,000 PA)

It would be my estimate that the real costs of getting a student through the Certificate II in Aged Care in a remote community like Maningrida is in the vicinity of $10,000 - $15,000/student.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can be of assistance.

Kind Regards

Scott McCall
Executive Officer
25th August 2004