The Macquarie Group Foundation has committed $2.6 million over three years in further funding for the Higher Expectations Program (HEP), which provides scholarship and case management support for students from remote indigenous communities to undertake secondary school education.

HEP is an initiative of indigenous leader Noel Pearson’s Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership. The Macquarie Group Foundation has supported HEP since 2005. Since then 54 students have received scholarships. The funding will also support John Wenitong, a National Indigenous Education Development Officer, in plans to expand HEP beyond Cape York.

The foundation also extended its partnership with The Song Room, a group providing music and performing arts to primary school children affected by geographical isolation, physical disability or financial circumstances.

A three-year capacity-building grant from the foundation will assist a research project being undertaken by the Song Room in conjunction with the University of Melbourne and the NSW Attorney General’s Department which includes the impact of arts-based intervention on juvenile offenders, Northern Territory-based indigenous young people and young refugees in their settlement phase.