NT to overhaul Education Act

The Northern Territory government has announced it will reform the Education Act to give principals more power to run their schools.

The 1979 Act is "antiquated", Education Minister Peter Chandler says, and a new Act is needed to give principals and school councils greater autonomy.

A discussion paper was released on Wednesday for consultation.

The current "one size fits all" model for schools doesn't consider the huge range of communities in the NT, he said, which range from urban centres in Darwin to tiny remote communities in the bush.

Independent public schools have been flagged as a future option.

"I think the public sector will drive education into the future but you've also got to offer the opportunity for independent schools, for the private sector, (who) all play a vitally important role to educate our children," Mr Chandler said.

Decentralised schooling would remove the multi-layered bureaucracy principals currently grapple with when managing numerous partnership funding agreements with the Commonwealth, and federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne is on board, he said.

"We need one pot of money, and then we could distribute that to each of our schools," Mr Chandler said.

He did not rule out public-private partnerships in schools.

"You may have a major player that wants to support a particular school or group of schools in an area - why shouldn't they be allowed to do that?" he said.

"If it means there may be a little bit of advertising involved ... as long as it focuses on a better education for children, why would you rule that out?"

He said if PPPs went ahead, care would have to be taken to avoid advertising things such as junk food companies, but pointed to the support offered by Japanese company Inpex, behind Darwin's massive LNG development.

When asked if that sort of financing could influence educational decisions by principals, Mr Chandler said the possibility was still a long way off.

The government hopes to introduce a draft Bill to Parliament during November sittings and to have the new Act ready to take effect by mid-year 2015.