Andrew Plastow won the South Australian Citizen of the Year Award in 2026 for challenging conventional teaching through the school he founded, Ngutu College. But how did he get here, and how did his experiences shape his passion for education and vision for Ngutu? (Image: Rocco Ventra)

By Rocco Ventra | @rocco.ventra

“My younger brother died just before he was 16.”

The energy in the room goes still. I’m sitting in the middle of the Ngutu (nu-du) College library in a meeting room. Across from me at this dark oak table is the founder of Ngutu College, Andrew Plastow, who has just shared the most personal thing I’ve been told by an interviewee so far as a student journalist.

“My brother was a very spirited young man, and his schooling consisted of getting himself into trouble pretty much on day one,” he says.

“Spending his evenings writing lines, not getting his homework done, so then getting lines, and he just had this consistent pattern of writing lines.

“What a waste of a life, a very short life. What a waste of time for him in that short life from a learning experience … while an incredibly negative thing in losing your brother, there was very important learning that I took from that as an educator.”

Andrew, 56, is the 2026 South Australian Citizen of the Year. He was first named citizen of the year for his council, the City of Charles Sturt, before being awarded the title for the whole state.

Andrew spent 15 years as principal of Alberton Primary School. During that time, he says he was one of five Aboriginal principals across the SA’s 550 schools.

“Through successive leadership changes, things began to change in the education department. It tended to have a binary approach to learning where English and Maths were the two key subjects and other subjects tended to have a … lesser importance,” he says.

“I pushed back against that, and a very large organisation pushed very hard back at me, so I made the decision in the middle of 2019 to resign from that department.”

“There were a number of families that had made the decision they were going to leave and were also going, ‘Andrew, you’ve got to do something’, and so that was the driving force behind it.”

In 2021, Andrew founded Ngutu College. Ngutu is the Kaurna word for knowledge.

A news article released by Local Councils SA says that through the creation of the school, Andrew “challenged conventional schooling to prioritise equity, culture and community in a learning environment where every child, young person and family can belong, thrive and be heard”.

Walking into Ngutu College was the first time I’d seen a skate park inside a school.

Ngutu’s lead strategic marketer and my guide for the day Holly Bousignac told me that filming for a road safety campaign was taking place on campus. Hence, my first impression of the school was formed by a camera crew huddled around a group of skaters.

Holly worked in a private business before moving to Ngutu. 

“I was aware of Ngutu’s strong reputation. It felt like a place where the work would really matter,” she says.

She describes Andrew as a “visionary leader, genuinely kind and a pleasure to work alongside”.

Andrew and Holly inside the Ngutu College Library. (Image: Rocco Ventra)

“Andrew is a thoughtful, trustworthy, and deeply values-driven leader, with a clear long-term vision. He also listens well, is very open-minded and always creates space for others to make meaningful contributions,” she says.

As Holly and I continue through the school, we spot a group of children who she tells me are participating in Warungga Tirka: a Kaurna phrase that translates to outside playtime in English.

We venture through the rest of the building. Student artworks vivify the learning areas. Andrew says these learning areas are intentionally designed to act as a “third educator”.

One of the many pieces of artwork that adorn Ngutu. (Image: Rocco Ventra)

“We set up our environments to actually give our children messages,” he says.

“The message [is] that we provide unique furniture because you’re unique individuals. If you think about the standard classroom with all of its laminate tables and plastic moulding chairs, there’s messages that kind of go you’re just a number in this room.

“But also, that we make everything indestructible because you’re untrustworthy, whereas you’ll see fragile things … everywhere throughout Ngutu.”

               Art at Ngutu includes a mural by an in-house artist and senior students, and photos of outback landscapes. (Images: Rocco Ventra)

“I am someone who has been disconnected from their cultures,” Andrew says.

“What we try to do here is provide the opportunity for a young person to know their particular mob, their culture, their cultural practices.

“There are some cultural features that are fairly consistently practised across Aboriginal cultures, and so we try to pick up on some of those elements and make sure our Aboriginal young people are proud and knowledgeable.”

Andrew says that one of Ngutu’s enrolment goals was to have a majority of Aboriginal students.

He says of the school’s 315 students, 50.8 per cent identify as Aboriginal, compared to just 15 per cent in Ngutu’s first year.

“Based on the average life expectancy of an Aboriginal male, schooling is one-third of their life. It’s a quarter of life for a female,” Andrew says.

“I don’t want schooling to be seen as something that prepares you for your life, because why would you give up a third of your life to prepare you for the other two-thirds?  

“So for me, education is about the experiences of children being citizens, seeing themselves as citizens now, and that their childhood is valued.”

Andrew belongs to the Gamilaroi nation: a large Aboriginal nation spanning northwest New South Wales to southern Queensland. He was not aware of his Aboriginality until he was in his late-20s. 

“My grandmother went to her grave not informing us of our Aboriginal heritage,” he says. 

“My mum would go over to Sydney and have family gatherings each year and one of her cousins was quite a ratbag and would tease his mum about being Aboriginal.

“One particular such event, she cracked, and said, ‘Alright then yes, yes we are’, and silence fell across the room.”

We share a laugh. Despite being such a personal topic, Andrew still manages to find humour in it all.

After his mum’s aunty conducted more research, the Aboriginal heritage of Andrew’s family caused a “divide” among them. While some of his cousins initially chose not to identify as Aboriginal, Andrew says his heritage is something he has “carried proudly” and has passed that pride onto his children.

“While I was at Alberton, I met a couple of people who … were late in life when they found out about their Aboriginality, and they went on Country and had this most profound experience … I was fearful [of] what happens if I go on Country and don’t, so I just didn’t,” he says.

Andrew overcame his fear last year while on camp with members of Moorambilla Voices: an award-winning arts organisation that provides music and arts education programs to children in regional and remote Australia.

“While I was in this camp, I went and put my hand on, sort of, the biggest, oldest tree and I just had this energy that came over my body I would not be able to fully articulate.

“For at least a couple of weeks afterwards I was in this state of absolute strength where things that would normally stress me or worry me and so forth just bounced off me.”

While Andrew considers his Civilian of the Year award a “lovely individual honour”, its impact on Ngutu’s development is more important.

“The hope is that the award gets the Ngutu name out, and we can hopefully attract more philanthropic support to the college,” he says.

“I’ve actually always struggled with the notion of awards because they are individual and this place didn’t happen just with me. It obviously took a team to get it by.”