Clearly, there needs to be a stringent examination of the financial accounting processes that have operated at the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education (BIITE).

It may be wise to draw a line under tenuous operational processes and start afresh. What has happened historically seems to have muddied the waters, making it hard for the Institute to get a firm grip on future directions. Going forward, there MUST be full financial accountability based on clear accounting processes.

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Matters surrounding the Remote Aboriginal Teacher Education (RATE) program (NT News 4/1) are somewhat unclear. The program described as ‘groundbreaking’ ran in the 1980’s and 90’s, helping qualify Indigenous staff to work as teachers in classrooms.

If the program was so successful, why was it then dropped for the best part of 25 years and is only now being reinstated? This is a question that deserves a response from the NT Education Department.

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It’s time for Australian Universities to put off the crawl to overseas students for the sake of dollars.

To regard students as cash cows and to count them as money bags rather than considering them as people is so wrong. Nor are our domestic students second class citizens.