“Education Access” “Education Access”

130 Pages·2000·1.54 MB·English

by  Phillipa Janos

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“Education Access”
“Education Access”
National Inquiry into Rural and Remote Education
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
August 2000
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© Commonwealth of Australia 2000
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968
and use in teaching materials with an appropriate acknowledgment, no part may be
reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the Human Rights
and Equal Opportunity Commission. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction
and rights should be addressed to the Executive Director, Human Rights and Equal
Opportunity Commission, GPO Box 5218, Sydney NSW 1042.
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry.
“Education Access”: National Inquiry into Rural and Remote Education.
Bibliography.
ISBN 0 642 26973 4.
1. Educational equalization - Australia. 2. Distance
education - Australia. I. Australia. Human Rights and
Equal Opportunity Commission.
370.994
Our cover features Denise Walker, Ravenshoe High School, and Cody Lincoln, Boulia
State School.
Designed by Phillipa Janos, Easy Online.
Print production by NetPrint Pty Ltd.
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Contents
Acronyms and definitions - page iii 5. Indigenous 45
1. Introduction 1 Homelands
• Education is a human right 1 Case study - East Arnhem Land, NT 46
• Limits on access 2 Arnhem Land Homelands -
Schooling Facts 50
2. Transport 5 Other Homelands Education Issues 52
• School resources and teaching staff 52
Case study - Mungindi, NSW 6 • Secondary access 54
Other School Transport Issues 10 • HREOC Recommendations 56
• Travel conditions 10
• Equity of access 13 6. Vocational Education 58
• Transport costs 15 and Training
• Transport subsidies 17
• HREOC Recommendations 18 Case study - Indulkana, South Australia 59
Other VET Issues 62
3. Students with 20 • VET overview 62
Disabilities • Rural opportunities 62
• Rural inequities 65
Case study - ‘Surry’, Queensland 21 • VET data 66
Disability Support, Discrimination • HREOC Recommendations 67
and Other Issues 25
• Integration support 25
7. Language and 68
• Limited options 26
Culture
• Physical access 28
• Transport 29 Case study - Kununurra, WA 69
• Disability support services 30 Other Language and Culture Issues 70
• Anti-discrimination law 31 • Cultural accessibility 70
• HREOC Recommendations 32 • Law and culture 70
• Indigenous language teaching 72
4. Distance Education 35
• Qualified staff 75
• Transition from primary to 77
Case study - Barcoo Shire, Queensland 36
secondary school
Other Distance Eduction Issues 39
• Other non-English speaking students 78
• Telecommunications infrastructure 39
• HREOC Recommendations 78
• Demands on home tutors 41
• Other costs 42
• HREOC Recommendations 43
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8. School Term Hostels 82 10.Access to 106
Secondary Schools
Case study - Blackall, Queensland 83
Other School Term Hostel Issues 87 New South Wales 108
• HREOC Recommendations 90 Northern Territory 110
Queensland 112
9. Information 92
South Australia 114
Technology Tasmania 116
Victoria 118
Case study - West Wyalong, NSW 93
Western Australia 120
Other IT Issues 96
• Internet access 96
References 122
• Equipment costs 97
• Maintenance, repair and Acknowledgments 124
technical support 99
• Professional development for teachers 103
• Library facilities 104
• HREOC Recommendations 104
ii
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Acronyms and definitions CEC - Community Education Centre
ABS - Australian Bureau of Statistics DDA - Disability Discrimination Act
1992 (Cth)
AIC - Assistance for Isolated Children
(federal income support provision) DET - Department of Education and
Training (NSW).
AIEW - Aboriginal and Islander
Education Worker DETE - Department of Education,
Training and Employment (South
AP Lands - Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands Australia)
(northern South Australia)
DETYA - Department of Education,
AQF - Australian Qualifications Training and Youth Affairs (Cth)
Framework
DOE - Department of Education; now
ASD - Autism Spectrum Disorder - Department of Education, Employment
described briefly on page 22 and Training (DEET Victoria)
ASSPA - Aboriginal Student Support EdNA - Education Network Australia
and Parent Awareness (DETYA funding
Education providers are the authorities
program)
directly responsible for the organisation,
ATSIC - Aboriginal and Torres Strait funding and provision of schools. They
Islander Commission (elected national are principally State and Territory
representative body) education departments and Catholic
Education Commissions and Offices.
Balanda - term used to describe
Others include the Board of Lutheran
Australians of European descent,
Schools.
particularly in the NT (see also Kartiya)
EDWA - Education Department of
CAAMA - Central Australia Aboriginal
Western Australia
Media Association
ESL - English as a Second Language
CAP - Country Areas Program (DETYA
funding program; known as Priority Country HREOC - Human Rights and Equal
Area Program - PCAP - in Queensland) Opportunity Commission
CDEP - Community Development ICPA - Isolated Children’s Parents’
Employment Projects Association
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IESIP - Indigenous Education Strategic SACE - South Australian Certificate of
Initiatives Program (DETYA funding Education
program)
Salamanca Statement adopted at the
ISA - Inclusion Support Assistant World Conference on Special Needs
Education in June 1994; concludes that
ISDN - Integrated Services Digital
students with special educational needs
Network
must have access to mainstream schools
which should accommodate them within
IT - Information Technology
a child-centred pedagogy capable of
meeting their needs:
ISP - Internet Service Provider
www.unesco.org/education/nfsunesco/pdf
Kartiya - term used to describe /SALAMA_E.PDF .
Australian of European descent,
School communities - A school
particularly in the Kimberley region (see
community is the group of people
also Balanda)
focused on and participating in education
Kbps - Kilobits per second (transmission in a school or town. Members include
speed) students and their parents, teachers, para-
professionals and auxiliary staff, P&C or
LAN - Local Area Network
P&F members and often other members
of the town community.
LOTE - Languages Other Than English
(a Key Learning Area)
TAFE - Technical and Further Education
MCEETYA - Ministerial Council on
USO - Universal Service Obligation
Education, Employment, Training and
Youth Affairs VCE - Victorian Certificate of Education
MCS - Murrupurtinyanuwa Community VET - Vocational Education and
School Training
NCVER - National Centre of Vocational YRC - Youth Research Centre,
Education Research University of Melbourne (conducted a
scoping survey for the inquiry)
P&C - Parents’ and Citizens’ Association
(attached to individual schools; also
Parents’ and Friends)
R&D - Research and Development
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1
Introduction
Education is fundamental to the development of human potential and to full participation
in a democratic society. That is why it is recognised as a human right for every child. It
is also why it is compulsory in Australia for every child to attend primary school from the age
of 6 and secondary school until 15 (16 in Tasmania). Yet some children have no access to
formal education or to an essential component of education or experience restrictions on
their access to education. This report describes the nature and circumstances of these
children’s experience.
Education is a human right
Australia has recognised the right of everyone to education and undertaken to make
primary and secondary education available to all (Convention on the Rights of the Child
article 28 and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rightsarticle
13). The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has pointed out that, to
satisfy this undertaking, education must be available, accessible including affordable,
acceptable and adaptable.
‘Availability’ means that ‘functioning educational institutions and programmes have to
be available in sufficient quantity’.
What they require to function depends upon numerous factors, including the
developmental context within which they operate; for example, all institutions and
programmes are likely to require buildings or other protection from the elements,
sanitation facilities for both sexes, safe drinking water, trained teachers receiving
domestically competitive salaries, teaching materials, and so on; while some will also
require facilities such as a library, computer facilities and information technology
(Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment No. 13
(1999), paragraph 6 *).
* The text of this General Comment and all Convention articles referred to is set out in
full in the companion report, Recommendations, Appendix 4.
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‘Accessibility’ has three dimensions. It education, training, health care services,
must be available to all without rehabilitation services, preparation for
discrimination, in law and in fact, employment and recreation opportunities
physically accessible and economically in a manner conducive to the child’s
accessible. The Committee requires achieving the fullest possible social
education to be ‘within safe physical integration and individual development,
reach, either by attendance at some including his or her cultural and spiritual
reasonably convenient geographic development.
location (e.g. a neighbourhood school) or
Australian law, however, does not
via modern technology (e.g. access to a
recognise the right to education except in
“distance learning” programme)’
NSW. The NSW Education Act 1990
(General Comment No. 13, paragraph 6).
provides, in section 4
Education must also be affordable to all.
In enacting this Act, Parliament has had
According to the Convention on the
regard to the following principles:
Rights of the Childarticle 23, children
with disabilities have the right to all the
(a) every child has the right to receive an
support necessary to become as self-
education,
reliant as possible. Article 23.1 provides
(b) the education of a child is primarily
the responsibility of the child’s
States Parties recognize that a mentally
parents,
or physically disabled child should enjoy
a full and decent life, in conditions which (c)it is the duty of the State to ensure
ensure dignity, promote self-reliance and that every child receives an education
facilitate the child’s active participation of the highest quality,
in the community.
(d) the principal responsibility of the
State in the education of children is
Article 23.3 requires that children with
the provision of public education.
disabilities be ensured access to
education.
Limits on access
Recognizing the special needs of a
Access to education is compromised by
disabled child, assistance ... shall be
ill-health, disability, poverty, isolation,
provided free of charge, whenever
high mobility and transience, natural
possible, taking into account the financial
events such as floods and even heavy
resources of the parents or others caring
rain. It is denied by remoteness coupled
for the child, and shall be designed to
with the language and cultural
ensure that the disabled child has
inappropriateness of the instruction on
effective access to and receives
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offer for hundreds of Indigenous Centres and outstation communities
children. without schools, teachers or tutors to
supervise distance education
Currently, many Australian Aboriginal
• Indigenous teenagers with no accessible
children are denied access to successful
secondary school curriculum
classroom learning for a number of
reasons. Two major sources of • Indigenous and non-English speaking
disadvantage include: children whose only curriculum is in a
language which they have never heard
• the cultural, linguistic and
spoken at home - English
sociolinguistic differences between
many of the teachers and the children • teenagers participating in a Vocational
Education and Training curriculum who
• the extremely high prevalence of
cannot find work experience placements
conductive hearing loss due to otitis
in their community or town and who
media (middle ear infection) which can
cannot afford the travel and
adversely affect cognitive, linguistic and
accommodation costs involved in
social development (Dr Anne Lowell
placements away from home
submission, page 1).
• teenagers whose only real chance of a
This report uses a combination of case satisfactory secondary education is to
study examples, evidence to the inquiry board at a school term hostel which is
and information about government at risk of losing its subsidies
programs including education-related
• schools trying to offer a contemporary
subsidies to illustrate the limits on access
curriculum using computers and the
to education which face
Internet where the IT infrastructure is
• children with disabilities, especially in
inadequate for the purpose and where
remote communities and rural areas
repairs can take an entire term to effect.
where there is little or no choice of
alternative local schools The State and Territory maps on pages 109
• children isolated from public transport -121 show the distribution of senior
routes or denied access to school buses secondary schools. Completion of Year 12
supplied or subsidised by government is incontestably required now for
fulfilment of a basic education - whether in
• children studying by distance education
an academic or a vocational stream. In the
whose radio or computer connections
NT even a junior secondary curriculum is
are dependent on unreliable power
available only in the larger urban centres.
sources or inadequate or very expensive
In Tasmania senior secondary schooling is
telecommunications infrastructure
available only in the larger urban centres at
• Indigenous children in Homeland
secondary colleges.
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The traditional emphasis on the teachers and aides to support the
compulsory nature of education has integration of students with disabilities.
allowed governments to provide a Isolation is mitigated to some extent by
monocultural education system that every the Commonwealth’s Assistance for
child is required to attend. Education has Isolated Children with its Distance
not accommodated difference well and Education Allowance, Boarding
has not reached out sufficiently to Allowance and Second Home Allowance
children as individuals. In the country as options. For country schools there is the
in the city, education choice is often Commonwealth’s excellent Country
between a government and a Catholic Areas Program (CAP) which distributes
primary school. The inquiry was $17.7 million among 5% of Australian
disturbed to find extensive de facto racial schools to assist almost 165,000 students.
segregation in which one of the local All States and Territories subsidise
schools (typically the Catholic primary school transport to some extent.
school in the Kimberley region of WA
More is needed to ensure access to
but the government primary school in
education for every Australian child. In
north-west NSW) enrols predominantly
its Recommendationsreport, the inquiry
Indigenous students while the other is the
has made 73 recommendations to this
school of choice for local white families.
end, many of which are reprinted in this
For rural families education ‘choice’ at
report.
the secondary level has traditionally been
secured by the option of capital city
boarding schools. The expense of this
option has always excluded many.
An emphasis on education as a right will
require governments to fashion teaching
and learning for children as individuals,
taking into account all of their
circumstances. Educationalists have long
emphasised this and many programs have
been piloted and implemented. They
include bilingual education programs in
12 government schools in the Northern
Territory and government funding
support for 14 Aboriginal independent
community schools in WA. They also
include provision of special education
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