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The Australian Government, through Centrelink, provides a range of benefits to eligible Australian residents. One of these is the ‘Assistance for Isolated Children Scheme benefit’ (AIC).
If your child has enrolled as a student in distance education, you may be able to apply for the AIC if you meet Centrelink’s eligibility criteria.
The AIC is a group of payments for parents and carers whose children can’t go to their local government school because they:
- are geographically isolated
- have a special education need
- have no reasonable access to their local government school, or
- meet a continuity condition.
To apply for this benefit, students need to be consistently engaged with their schoolwork.
If you wish to apply, you will need a confirmation of enrolment letter from SDEHS.
Letters may be issued on request after at least one term of enrolment where the school can confirm the student’s consistent engagement.
The Centrelink requirement for consistent engagement is that a student may continue to receive the benefit where they are completing at least 75% of their work in each course they are studying.
Please contact your Year Adviser regarding this letter.
It is important to note the following.
- Centrelink contacts SDEHS every term to check if students are adequately engaged in their schoolwork. The school must confirm, or otherwise, if a student has “submitted 75% of assignments”. At Sydney Distance Education High School, this means a student must be regularly returning at least 75% of their work in each course.
If Centrelink decides that a student is not sufficiently engaged, they may ask for the money to be paid back.
- SDEHS is providing this information, however, does not have any role in the application or approval processes, except for providing a confirmation of enrolment letter where a student is returning at least 75% of their work for a term or more.
If you wish to proceed with an application, then the relationship remains solely between the applicant and Centrelink.
The link to the website is below.
https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/assistance-for-isolated-children-scheme