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Family School Partners February 2011
Rural Education
In this edition we focus on issues associated with rural education, a topic all the more sensitive since the effects of natural disasters have devastated large sections of rural Australia. The influence of three key rural independents should force greater attention and, more particularly, the allocation of more resources to supporting rural communities. Education has been identified as an area requiring investment. We want to give you an idea of what the issues are and what is being done to address those issues. Follow the links for more detail.
Before we start, please take a moment to note that the Bureau has a new direct phone contact and postal address. We are still co-located with ACSSO in the newly refurbished Chifley Hub, but have a new phone number: 02 6282 5887. The new postal address is PO Box 3910, WESTON 2611. Manager Kate Lyttle remains contactable on mobile 0407 181 013 or by email at kate.lyttle@familyschool.org.au. We look forward to hearing from you.
UNDERSTANDING THE ISSUES
Education in rural Australia
Posted by Naomi Godden, On Line Opinion, 27 May 2008
Remote, rural and regional Australians experience human rights concerns accessing quality education. Rural participation, retention and achievement in education are far below urban Australia. Yet education is the pathway to opportunity and productivity for disadvantaged people and communities.
A collaborative proposal was developed by ten members of the Rural Industries and Rural Communities stream at the Australia 2020 Summit. It collates ideas from the summit, and demands that education is prioritised for rural revitalisation, sustainability and productivity. The proposal ensures that all rural Australians can access their human right to education, and promotes rural social inclusion.
The following key strategies will ensure rural access to, and equity and excellence in, the Education Revolution:
- A “national voice” for rural education
- National rural education strategy
- Flexible and online learning opportunities
- Satellite Education Centres with high tech, high speed communications
- Non-means tested Youth Allowance and Tertiary Access Allowance for all rural tertiary students
- Commonwealth Scholarships for TAFE and other post-secondary students
- Mentoring a Rural Renaissance
- Funded rural work experience programs
- Waive HECS-HELP debts for rural practitioners
- Indigenous education
Some important rural education issues were not able to be discussed at the 2020 Summit, including: increased funding for regional universities; expanding Assistance for Isolated Children eligibility to facilitate choice in education for remote children; educating rural students with a disability; educating migrant and refugee peoples in rural communities; and access and excellence in education for rural women.
Improving rural access to quality education will improve rural socio-economic status, health and wellbeing, industries and economy, self-esteem and the capacity of rural communities to thrive. Education is integral to remote, rural and regional human rights concerns and central to rural revitalisation, sustainability and productivity. Education is the key to Rural Australia and so Australia’s future. We must work together to ensure education is accessible, equitable, and of excellent quality for all rural Australians. Our nation depends on it.
Read more: http://www.familyschool.org.au/pdf/Education2020.pdf
Rural Schooling
Fact Sheet 13, National Rural Health Alliance, May 2009
Education is a significant determinant of an individual’s health. As well as providing knowledge and skills, effective rural schooling provides a firm base for further education and career choice.
Chief among the challenges in rural education are attracting and retaining qualified staff, improving school transport services, and supporting community development and cohesion.
There are many achievements to celebrate in rural education but a number of issues need to be addressed to ensure that quality schooling remains a reality for children and young people in rural and remote Australia. Rural schools have provided generations of children and young people with knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to become autonomous, responsible and productive citizens.
Schools play a vital role in developing and sustaining rural communities and are crucial to Australia’s sustainability.
For many families in rural Australia, accessing quality education in the local area is becoming increasingly difficult. There are many reasons for this, including major changes to the demographics of rural Australia, ongoing school consolidations and closures, and a belief that cities and large regional centres are “where you have to go” in order to receive a quality education.
In 1999-2000 the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) conducted a National Inquiry into Rural and Remote Education in Australia.
Following HREOC’s report, the Ministerial Council for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA), Australia’s peak education policy body, approved a National Framework for Rural and Remote Education. It sets out the essentials for ensuring quality education is available, accessible, affordable, acceptable and adaptable.
Details are at: http://www.curriculum.edu.au/verve/_resources/rural_file.pdf
http://nrha.ruralhealth.org.au/cms/uploads/factsheets/fact-sheet-13-rural-schooling.pdf
Every young person in Australia deserves first class educational opportunities regardless of where they live.
Rural Education Forum Australia, 9 August 2010
The Rural Education Forum Australia is a national advocacy organisation presenting a consolidated view on rural and remote learning matters from early childhood to post compulsory education. The Forum seeks a commitment from all major political parties, with a view to implementing effective policies in government, to address the inequality of outcomes for young people in regional and remote Australia.
Chair of the Rural Education Forum - Howard Kelly said, “We believe in a learning framework that is significantly determined at the community level within state and national parameters, and that we believe policies should be framed to address and/or promote the following issues:
- Improved access to affordable high-quality education services by students in rural and remote communities from early childhood through to tertiary, trade training and employment.
- Improved learning opportunities by building sustainable rural communities.
- The recruitment and retention of quality leadership and staffing in rural and remote schools.
- Curriculum and learning practices that develop higher student aspirations, well-being and resilience in rural and remote communities.
- Greater improvement in learning outcomes of disadvantaged groups in rural and remote areas – Indigenous and low socio-economic students.
- The implementation of the National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care within rural and remote communities.
- The promotion of collaboration between the key elements in rural and remote communities to address issues of disadvantage, e.g. Health, Education and Local Government.
- An assessment of how effectively formal schooling is meeting the current needs of rural and remote students.
- Celebration and communication of best practice in learning delivery to rural and remote students.
- A significant budget allocation to address these needs as a major focus and outcome of the Review of School Funding 2010-2011.
http://www.refa.asn.au/2010/08/refa-press-release-august-2010-mind-the-gap/
Rural schools hit by test errors
Justine Ferrari, Education writer, The Australian, February 03, 2010
THE national literacy and numeracy test results for small and rural schools fail to provide reliable information on their performance, skewing their results as either much better or worse than those of other schools.
The reliability of the national test results published on the My School website varies greatly according to the size of the school, with small schools having the most inexact results.
The variation is due to the measurement errors inherent in any form of test.
The error rates show that a school's average score varies by as little as four points and as much as 38 points, depending on the size of the class and the subject tested.
Testing experts said yesterday the error rates were in line with expectations for the type of tests conducted, but said they highlighted the need to assess school performance on a broader range of measures than a single average score.
The margins of error also highlight that ranking schools based on the median score, as done by some newspapers after the My School launch, is meaningless. Education professor Stephen Lamb, who developed a reporting system for school results for the Victorian government, said the margins of error were critical in small schools, where a marked difference in performance by one student in one year could make a huge difference to the school's average.
"The larger the number of students, the more reliable it is in representing school performance," Professor Lamb said. "Small schools may appear to do much better or worse; it's one of the difficulties with comparing rural schools, which tend to be small."
WHAT'S THE GOVERNMENT DOING?
National Framework for Rural and Remote Education
MCEETYA Taks Force on Rural and Remote Education, Training , Employment and Children's Services, 2001
The purpose of the National Framework for Rural and Remote Education is to:
- provide a framework for the development of nationally agreed policies and support services
- promote consistency in the delivery of high quality education services to rural and remote students and their families
- provide reference points and guidance for non-government providers of services and support for education in rural and remote areas
- facilitate partnership building between government and non-government providers of services and support related to the provision of education in regional, rural and remote locations.
Rationale
Recommendation 4.4 in the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) report referred to the necessity to develop a national rural education policy. The task force believed that it would be more productive to develop an agreed framework that allows for local differences and provides flexibility in implementation by individual State and Territory education systems and sectors.
The framework focuses upon the requirements of providing education in rural and remote locations while recognising that country communities are often places of great innovation, expertise and resilience.
http://www.curriculum.edu.au/verve/_resources/rural_file.pdf
Victoria’s Rural Education Framework
On 28 October 2010 the Department released Victoria’s Rural Education Framework.
Victoria’s Rural Education Framework has been developed as part of the Victorian Government’s commitment to the provision of high-quality school education for students in regional and rural Victoria. This commitment recognises the impact strong education provision has on the liveability, productivity and sustainability of regional and rural communities. High-quality schools are fundamental in attracting new families to rural and regional communities, while concurrently playing a vital role in developing the future workforce and ensuring strong economic outcomes.
Over 300 regional and rural stakeholders across both schools and communities provided feedback on the development of this Framework.
Victoria’s Rural Education Framework represents a significant step forward in the delivery of education to regional and rural Victoria. It draws on existing Blueprint for Education and Early Childhood Development initiatives and identifies new opportunities specific to rural schools.
Read more: http://www.education.vic.gov.au/about/consultation/ruraleducation.htm
Download Framework: http://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/commrel/policy/ruralframework.pdf
WHAT ARE SCHOOLS DOING?
MLC indigenous program
Weekly Times, 7 February 2011
AN innovative program to offer educational opportunities to indigenous children has found a home.
The program, at Methodist Ladies' College in Kew, saw MLC make an arrangement with Yalari, a Queensland not-for-profit company, since 2007 to offer two boarding scholarships for indigenous students to enter at Year 7.
Yalari, based at Oxenford, near Southport, was established in 2005 to strive for long-term generational change for indigenous people.
It gives children from regional, rural and remote communities and towns across Australia the chance of a first-class education through full boarding scholarships at high-achieving boarding schools.
Yalari is a word from the Birri Gubba language group meaning "child".
The company was founded by indigenous educator Waverley Stanley and his wife, Llew Mullins, after his own experience as a boarder at Toowoomba Grammar School more than 20 years ago.
It now supports 167 children around Australia enrolled at 34 partnership schools in Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory.
http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/article/2011/02/07/288735_country-living.html
TERRAnova
This project seeks to discover the nature of successful strategies for preparing, attracting and retaining high quality teachers for rural and remote schools in five Australian states. It is conceived as a national partnership between teacher education researchers with a history of institutional commitment to rural education, and whose pre-service programmes produce graduates for positions in rural schools.
It will use a longitudinal series of annual national surveys of two cohorts of student teachers taking up university and state incentive schemes for rural teaching, with follow-up focus group interviews each year. These participants will be re-surveyed and followed up at interview again as beginning teachers over their first two years of teaching.
In addition, case studies of rural schools identified by communities and systems as successful in retaining good teaching staff will be developed in order to identify the nature of successful teacher education and recruitment strategies that make making rural teaching an attractive and long-term career option at both primary and secondary levels.
WHAT ARE PARENTS DOING?
Isolated Children's Parents' Association Of Australia
ICPA (Aust) is a voluntary, non-profit, apolitical parent body dedicated to ensuring that all rural and remote students have equity of access to a continuing and appropriate education.
It encompasses the education of children from early childhood through to tertiary. Children may be educated in small rural schools, by distance education, attend boarding schools or school term hostels and sometimes have access to early childhood services. Tertiary students whose family home is in rural and remote Australia frequently must live away from home to access further education
The Association has over 4,500 members, residing in the more remote parts of Australia, who all share a common concern of gaining access to education for their children and the provision of services required to achieve this.
Membership includes a cross section of Australia's rural and remote population and includes fishermen, miners, itinerant employees, farmers, pastoralists and small business owners.
ICPA seeks to have all elements of education (cultural experiences, social contacts, participation in sport and other enriching activities) available for all children regardless of their home location.
To achieve its goal ICPA pursues objectives in the following areas:
- Education Allowances
- Boarding Schools/School Term Hostels
- Travel
- Distance Education
- Special Education
- Curriculum
- Communications
- Rural and Remote Schools
- Early Childhood Education
- Tertiary Education
- Country Areas Program
SPERA
The Society for the Provision of Education in Rural Australia (SPERA) consists of people who share a common concern and commitment to the maintenance and development of appropriate educational opportunities for rural communities in Australia.
SPERA began in 1983 and has members in all Australian states and territories. The society holds an annual conference each year and produces regular newsletters and journals for its members.
SPERA has as its goals the advancement of education opportunities in rural Australia by:
- serving as a national advocate for rural education;
- promoting delivery systems that bring about efficient and effective learning; and
- collating and disseminating information on the provision of education in rural Australia.
WHAT ARE YOUNG PEOPLE DOING?
Rural-city education gap widens: figures
Steve Lillebuen, Sydney Morning Herald, February 18, 2010
More students in rural Victoria are dropping out of high school as the gap widens between country and city schools, new figures reveal.
Regional schools have reported a five per cent increase in high school dropouts over the past seven years, according to education department figures.
At the same time, the number of Melbourne students staying in school
has remained fairly steady.
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Only 67.2 per cent of rural students last year remained at school until year 12, compared to 85.8 per cent in greater Melbourne.
The retention rates suggest the divide between regional and metropolitan Victoria is growing with a 13.6 per cent discrepancy in 2002 jumping up to 18.6 per cent by 2009.
WHERE TO NOW?
Rural students to benefit from Federal schooling agreement
Justine Ferrari, The Australian, 9 Sep 2010
RURAL schools will get the first bite of spending on education initiatives under the minority Gillard government, with one-third of funding quarantined to be spent in the bush.
Rural education experts yesterday warned against simply rolling out the same programs across the nation, saying measures that work in the big cities will not necessarily be effective in small communities.
In its agreement with the two rural independents, Labor reprioritised spending of two key policies announced during the election campaign, allocating about a third of the money to paying rewards to schools and for school autonomy in regional Australia.
The agreement notes that one of out of every three Australians lives in a regional community, appearing to justify the allocation.
Education Minister Simon Crean yesterday confirmed similar arrangements would apply to specific education programs, rather than base school funding.
''As the agreement document states, under a Labor minority government, regional Australia will be the first to receive funding for key education initiatives and the funding will be distributed proportionally,'' he said.
http://www.austparents.edu.au/rural-students-to-benefit-from-federal-schooling-agreement
PCAP Review
The Priority Country Area Program (PCAP) is a community-based rural education program, jointly administered by the Department of Education and Training and the Queensland Catholic Education Commission.
Funds are targeted to students in government and non-government schools to improve learning outcomes by providing educational, social, and cultural opportunities which are normally difficulty to access in rural and remote areas.
A PCAP Issues Paper was developed and given to key stakeholders such as the Queensland Council of Parents and Citizens’ Associations (QCPCA), Isolated Children’s Parents’ Association (ICPA), Federation of Parents and Friends Associations, Queensland Catholic Education Commission (QCEC) and the Department of Education and Training (DET).
During the consultation phase, stakeholders overwhelmingly agreed that basing eligibility on shire boundaries was unfair and that other criteria should be used.
Approximately 26 per cent of PCAP funding was spent on administrative costs and stakeholders agreed that this was excessive and should be changed.
Stakeholders were also critical of the submission process and thought it was unnecessary to write funding submissions each year for what was essentially recurrent funding.
What changes will be implemented as a result of the review?
A new funding program, the Rural and Remote Education Access Program (RREAP), will replace PCAP. Due to a decrease in administrative costs, more schools will be able to access the new funding program.
During consultation, most respondents agreed that the administration costs were too high and that any savings made should be reinvested into the program to allow more schools to access funding.
Decision-making on most of the funding will be made at the local school and School Cluster Committee (SCC) level. School Cluster Committees replace Local Area Committees. They will be made up of a principal and parent organisation representative from each school in the cluster. Clusters will be determined by schools during the transition.
It is also recommended that funding be set aside to hold an annual Rural and Remote Education conference where new ideas and innovative projects can be shared.
The new program will start from 1 January 2012. The transition from the PCAP structure to the RREAP structure will take place during 2011.
$300,000 for an education
Lucy Hood, The Advertiser, February 08, 2011
COUNTRY parents will pay almost $70,000 less to educate their child compared to those in the city.
The Australian Scholarships Group's education costs estimates report found parents of a child who starts primary school in five years faces a total bill of up to $310,000 compared with up to $240,000 for those whose children attend country schools.
The group's general manager of development, Frida Kordovoulos, said the parents of more than 8000 Australian children were surveyed about the money they spent on fees, uniforms, stationery, textbooks, extracurricular activities, IT and other education-related expenses.
"Parents of children attending school in regional areas reap significant cost benefits compared to those in metropolitan areas," she said.
Association of Independent Schools of SA executive director Garry Le Duff said affordable rural private schools were an area of growth for the independent sector
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