Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education (BIITE, generally known as Batchelor Institute and formerly known as Batchelor College) provides training and further education, and

higher education Higher education is tertiary education leading to award of an academic degree. Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after comple ...

for

Aboriginal Australians Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Isl ...

and

Torres Strait Islanders Torres Strait Islanders () are the Indigenous Melanesian people of the Torres Strait Islands, which are part of the state of Queensland, Australia. Ethnically distinct from the Aboriginal people of the rest of Australia, they are often groupe ...

. It is based in Kungarakany and

Awarai The Awarai (Warray) are an indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory. Language The Norwegian explorer Knut Dahl wrote down a short list of vocabulary of the Awarai language. Country The Awarai tribal lands took in some of territ ...

country, in

Batchelor, Northern Territory Batchelor is a town in the Northern Territory of Australia. The town is the current seat and largest town of the Coomalie Shire local government area. It is located south of the territory capital, Darwin. A number of residents commute to Dar ...

in Australia. Batchelor Institute is classified as a 'Table A'

tertiary education Tertiary education, also referred to as third-level, third-stage or post-secondary education, is the educational level following the completion of secondary education. The World Bank, for example, defines tertiary education as including univers ...

provider. Like an increasing number of universities, Batchelor Institute is a dual-sector institution, providing higher education and vocational education and training courses. The Institute is the first Indigenous-controlled higher education institution in Australia. It is also unusual in that most of its students are over 30 years of age, and a high proportion of its students are female.

History

Batchelor Institute began in the mid-1960s as an annex of

Kormilda College Haileybury Rendall School is an Independent school, independent Mixed-sex education, co-educational Pre-school education, early learning, Primary school, primary and Secondary school, secondary day school located in the suburb of , in the Norther ...

, a residential school for Aboriginal students on the outskirts of Darwin, Northern Territory. Short training programs were provided for Aboriginal teacher aides and assistants in community schools. In 1973 the Commonwealth government allowed Indigenous communities to determine the educational approach they wanted for their children, including bilingual education. In 1974, the college moved to Batchelor (100 kilometres south of Darwin), a town of about 500 people. It has been at its present site since 1982. A community-based teacher education program established at

Yirrkala Yirrkala is a small community in East Arnhem Region, Northern Territory, Australia, southeast of the large mining town of Nhulunbuy, on the Gove Peninsula in Arnhem Land. Its population comprises predominantly Aboriginal Australians of the ...

in 1976, was later extended to become the Remote Area Teacher Education (RATE) program, and in 1986 Batchelor College entered into a partnership with

Deakin University Deakin University is a public university in Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1974, the university was named after Alfred Deakin, the second Prime Minister of Australia. Its main campuses are in Melbourne's Burwood suburb, Geelong Waurn Ponds, ...

(Melbourne) to deliver a teaching qualification known as Deakin Batchelor Aboriginal Teacher Education Program (DBATE). A second campus of the college was established in Alice Springs in 1990 to address the educational needs of Aboriginal people from Central Australia. Other annexes were opened in Darwin, Nhulunbuy,

Katherine Katherine, also spelled Catherine, and other variations are feminine names. They are popular in Christian countries because of their derivation from the name of one of the first Christian saints, Catherine of Alexandria. In the early Christ ...

and

Tennant Creek Tennant Creek ( wrm, Jurnkkurakurr) is town located in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is the seventh largest town in the Northern Territory, and is located on the Stuart Highway, just south of the intersection with the western termin ...

. The

Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government ...

recognised Batchelor College as an accredited independent higher education institution through the Higher Education Funding Act 1988 and provided funding through the Higher Education Support Act 2003. This meant that BIITE could issue its own degrees and other tertiary qualifications without outside involvement, in the same way as universities, and also be funded like them.

Campuses and annexes

Batchelor Institute has 15 locations throughout the Northern Territory.

Campus/annex locations

* Alice Springs * Batchelor * Darwin *

* Nhulunbuy *

Study centre locations

* Borroloola *

Gunbalanya Gunbalanya (also spelt Kunbarlanja, and historically referred to as Oenpelli) is an Aboriginal Australian town in west Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia, about east of Darwin. The main language spoken in the community is Kunwi ...

Maningrida Maningrida, also known as Manayingkarírra and Manawukan, is an Aboriginal community in the heart of the Arnhem Land region of Australia's Northern Territory. Maningrida is east of Darwin, and north east of Jabiru. It is on the North Central ...

* Ngukurr * Nyirripi *

Utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book '' Utopia'', describing a fictional island societ ...

Learning centre locations

* Angurugu *

Wadeye Wadeye ( ) is a town in Australia's Northern Territory. It was formerly known (and is still often referred to) as Port Keats. At the , Wadeye had a population of 2,280. Wadeye is the 6th most populous town, and the largest Indigenous community ...

References

External links

* {{authority control, state=collapsed Indigenous Australian education Education in the Northern Territory Australian tertiary institutions Australian vocational education and training providers Indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory