Text in white letters on a black background reads "Student Congress."

The aim of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Student Congress is to connect the 100,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander high school students across the continent to collectively shape decisions impacting their education.

How the Student Congress Is Being Built

The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Student Congress has been shaped through a national co-design process with young mob. Over the past year, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people have come together to share what Congress should look like, how it should feel, and what it should stand for.

Through this process, young people laid the foundations for a Congress and from this co-design work, three clear goals emerged. The Congress exists to support young mob to:

• Feel heard: to know their voices matter in decisions about education

• Be connected: to build relationships, solidarity, and community with other young mob

• Take collective action: to work together to influence change in their schools and beyond

With these foundations in place, we are now in the testing phase of the Congress model.

Testing the Congress Model

In 2026, NIYEC is running four pilots to explore how different parts of the Congress can work in practice, locally, online, through media, and through research.

These pilots will help us understand how young people want to connect, lead, and take action, and how a national structure can support place-based hubs in the future.

The four pilots are:

• Student News: a youth-led media collective amplifying young mob’s voices nationally
• Student-Led Research: young mob redesigning the Learning Our Truth survey and building tools that strengthen student agency
• Policy Submissions: supporting and working with young people to shape and influence national education policy
• Place-Based Congress Pilot: testing a local model bringing students together across three public high schools in Townsville

We are currently recruiting for Student News and Student-Led Research.