Creating a national group of educators, service providers and government ministers to improve training and research was revealed as the top priority to help enhance education for country students, in the national Independent Review into Regional, Rural and Remote Education’s final report.
Flinders University Emeritus professor John Halsey conducted the review, making 11 recommendations and suggesting 53 actions as ways to progress the recommendations.
Based on these, Dr Halsey identified four priorities to improve RRR education, with the top priority recognised as forming a national education focus group.
“It is critically important that we nationally establish an enduring high-level strategy – it must be obvious how it is implemented and it must be a long-term strategy,” he said.
The other priorities were identified as improving important resources for successful learning, addressing the patchiness of information technology in RRR locations, and improving the transition to further opportunities.
“What we have found is a lot of students transitioning from high school to university or vocational education were behind the eight-ball,” Dr Halsey said.
“A major issue for young people who are from family circumstances where money is tight, is to qualify for a government allowance, to support themselves with accommodation and living expenses once they finish school and go to university, they need to deem themselves independent and that includes earning money for at least 14 months.
“What we need to establish is a seamless transition, which includes support services to assist with accommodation costs and, most importantly, travel expenses to return home and remain connected to their community.
“Young people, when making the transition to higher education, need greater connectivity with home and I have suggested that a solution is for government to free-up funding to support that priority.”
It was also recommended the Australian curriculum and its assessment criteria be readjusted to be relevant to country students.
Dr Halsey said the federal government needed to make changes to the metro-centric curriculum by introducing additional subjects and assessments that supported a country student’s relationship to life, culture and interest in career opportunities outside of the city.
“It is not just the big assessment processes that generate the data that indicate national literacy and numeracy benchmarks, there is also knowledge of the land, as well as students from primary industry backgrounds that know things not captured in what is formally assessed, and this needs to change,” he said.
SA Education and Training minister John Gardner said the review’s recommendations would be considered by government alongside the Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools, led by David Gonski.
The report will be presented to the Council of Australian Governments education council in Adelaide today, with federal Education and Training Minister Simon Birmingham and state education ministers in attendance.
