March 13, 2014

A TV campaign featuring South Burnett schoolchildren promoting the advantages of regular school attendance has drawn nationwide praise.

The two TV ads used so far in the campaign were shot in the South Burnett late last year.

They feature indigenous students from Cherbourg, Murgon, Wondai and Kingaroy speaking about their future careers.

However the voices of the children are supplied by indigenous actor Leah Purcell and football legend Steve Renouf, who both donated their services to the project free of charge.

The ads are the brainchild of Cherbourg Shire Council’s Barambah PaCE officer Marcus Priaulx.

They were shot by award-winning creative director John Lyons and cinematographer Wayne Aistrope, then colourised by Chris Reynolds, all of whom also donated their services.

The ads began screening on south-east Queensland TV stations in late January using a small amount of government seed funding.

They have since been picked up by the national NITV indigenous network and SBS, who have screened them as community service announcements.

Since the ads first appeared, praise has flown thick and fast.

The Australian Education Union (AEU) featured the ads on their website soon after they were released.

AEU Federal Aboriginal Education Officer Nicole Major said feedback from AEU members since then has been “overwhelmingly positive”.

And Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion has written to Mr Priaulx saying his department has used the ads to support its Remote Schools Strategy.

According to a report in The Australian newspaper on February 27, this already appears to have had some effect.

“Attendances at 40 remote schools across the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Queensland are up an average of 14 per cent over the same period last year,” Mr Priaulx said.

“Schools which did not have the Remote Schools Strategy in place but were in the same TV viewing areas have also had a rise in attendance.

“There is no other explanation apart from the ads.

“And from all accounts they’ve also had a major impact on our local area as well.”

This week the Education Dreams project – which is collecting public donations to keep the ads showing on TV screens – released a third ad in the series (shown above).

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