05/03/2024
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY AT NCAT
This Friday, 8th of March is International Women’s Day, a day which encourages us to consider the ways in which women are represented, talked about, and supported in all facets of our lives. This year’s theme Invest in Women. Accelerate Progress is about economic investment and inclusion as it is through these things women can experience, empowerment and growth in many areas of their lives.
Our very own Principal, Raffaela Galati-Brown is just one of the many strong and inspiring women who work at NCAT.
Devoting her career to improving the educational experience for young people in government schooling, Raffaela has tirelessly worked to build a unique educational community that caters to students’ passions in an engaging, warm and inclusive environment.
Raffaela has been a trailblazer from the beginning of her career. In 1991, she became (at that time) the youngest Principal in Victoria at just 35 years old. Breaking through the ranks, in a highly male-dominated field, she has thrived in this position ever since.
NCAT was previously known as Northland Secondary College. The story of Raffaela and the Northland Secondary College fight to stay open, then re-open after closure by the Kennett Government is legendary. Raffaela helped organise and lead the campaign to re-open the school. She supported Dedrie Bux, the Koori Educator at the time and another wonderful leader, establish a rebel school for the displaced students after the school was closed and helped organise funding and materials for the rebel school. The battle with the Government continued across four years.
The Northland Secondary College community won the battle before the Equal Opportunity Board in December 1993, but the decision was overturned by Justice Beach in January 1994. Seven months later the Supreme Court decided discrimination had occurred and sent the case back to the Equal Opportunity Board. On 14 December 1994 the Equal Opportunity Board ordered the Government to reopen the college, but the Government appealed to the Supreme Court. The full bench of the Supreme Court ordered the re-opening of Northland Secondary College on 17 February 1995 and the school was re-opened 1 March 1995 – the only school to do so of all that were closed by the Kennett government.
Raffaela has always been invested and committed to Koori education. She has won numerous awards in this area, but most notably was awarded an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) in 2008 for her service to education and to Indigenous youth as the Principal of Northland Secondary College. She was also inducted to the inaugural Victorian Honor Roll of Women Shaping the Nation.
Raffaela is the brains, sweat and force behind all we enjoy at NCAT today – the creative ways of thinking, the staff, the buildings and facilities, the VET programs and more. We are so grateful to have such an inspirational and innovative woman at our helm.
