Rural and Remote Education - NSW
Rural
and Remote Education - NSW
Moree Public Meeting, 4 March
1999 - notes
Participants were
two parents (one from Moree East Primary School P&C and the other from
Pallamallawa Primary), a member of the NSW Teachers' Federation and a
representative of the Education Department.
Moree East Primary
School
"I think Moree East
is a great school. I have no complaints. I'm involved very much with the
P&C. Our major problem is getting parent involvement with the P&C - getting
the parent community involved in the school through fund-raising and awareness
raising. We've only 4 or 5 parents. We haven't got the number to draw
on for fund-raising. That's a resource issue.
"The school is very
good on computers. They've just linked up all their computers. They're
all up-to-date with internet access. The kids have weekly lessons and
use the computers regularly.
"The teachers are
wonderful up there. They're very interested in the kids and they keep
them busy all the time. They put a lot of their own time and effort into
activities, performances, activities at lunchtime such as sport and the
computer club.
"The classes at the
moment are fairly small. There are some composite classes. There's a Year
3 and also a Year 3-4.
"The school doesn't
charge any fees. The P&C have a voluntary contribution. Only about one-third
pay it. We raise about $500 for the school that way."
Country Area Program
"The Country Area
Program for isolated schools is designed to offset the lack of cultural
opportunities in smaller towns. It used to have a cultural component where
the money only went to sending cultural tours to isolated schools. That's
changed and the schools are given the money now rather than on an application
basis. So the schools are given all the money now. Moree East is a disadvantaged
school but not an isolated school. It's more common now that the Country
Area Program is used for literacy and those kinds of program. Schools
have to be really accountable now for the money they spend and show an
outcome. You can't really show an outcome if you spend your money on cultural
things."
Pallamallawa Primary
School
"I'm very happy with
Palli. It's only a very small school - only 84 students this year. I'm
quite happy with the standards and we have a much better parent body.
The composite classes work very well because they're only two grades.
We have the internet and have for quite a while. The kids use it and there
are TAFE courses taught there after hours including adult learning using
the school computers.
"I'm also happy with
Warialda High School which is another small school. It goes from Year
7 right through to Year 12. I'd like to improve their subject choices.
My child in Year 9 wanted to take Commerce this year but there weren't
enough kids to do it. Instead she had to take Drama or Music. I'd much
prefer her to take Commerce. My eldest child in Year 9 did come to Moree
(30km from Palli) for school in Year 7 and one term of Year 8 and I wasn't
happy so I took her the other way to Warialda (50km). We have a bus run
either way so I took that option.
"Last year we had
11 Year 6 students at Palli: 3 went to Warialda High, 3 went to Courallie
(in Moree), 1 went away to boarding school and 4 went to Moree High. Out
at Palli about 60% of the school or Uni leavers are back on the properties;
40% would be off doing some other career. When Dad's ready to retire they
come back and take over."
Indigenous education
"Part of the problem
is that the Aboriginal parents don't understand what is required of the
students. There needs to be something in place to assist them in understanding
what education is about for their children and where they should go with
it. That's a parents education program that needs to be in place. Because
their schooling was so different they don't know what their children are
required to do.
"We perhaps need
more Aboriginal teachers. Not simply Aboriginal students attending teachers'
college and being sent wherever. That doesn't seem to be working. A lot
of Aboriginal teachers don't seem to survive as well outside of their
own community. Perhaps there could be something put in place that would
see them going back to their own community and even training within their
own community. That might encourage more Aboriginal people to become teachers.
"We've had quite
a bit of success with AEAs training to be teachers."
CITEP - Community-based
Indigenous Teacher Education Program - is now running at Boggabilla. "There
is slow growth and it is very positive."
"The recognition
of Aboriginal English as a dialect is very important in these schools
up here. The Aboriginal language program goes from Goodooga, Lightening
Ridge, Walgett, (not Coonamble), Boggabilla, Toomelah, Mungindi and Moree.
Brother John is responsible for the training. With the Toomelah elders
such as Rose Fernando and Ted Fields, he's written a textbook which has
just been printed. That's a powerful base to bring back some of that pride
and knowledge of yourself."
The 2-day induction
by Aboriginal Education Assistants, Aboriginal teachers and elders conducted
this year for new teachers in the district was said to be very successful.
The job prospects
for Aboriginal people, however, are almost negligible in towns like Moree.
There are a few jobs in some government offices and some schools.
Technology
"All rural schools
have an internet account. Depending on the quality of the ISDN line. In
this area, because of the heavy demand by the cotton industry on international
traffic, there's quite a few macro links in the major towns. So the quality
of the lines is very good. Further west the lines are a little frail but
they are being upgraded. Every school has one link at the moment and some
have multiple points. By the end of this year every public school in NSW
will have an E-mail access for all principals, internet and a school intranet.
We should 1,100 schools hooked up by June and the other half by the end
of the year. The internet provider is Ozemail and every school is paid
to link up to the provider in Sydney. Internet usage in schools is increasing
at 1000% per month."
"The money that schools
get to compensate them for STD calls is very generous and in the Dubbo
district it covers the calls quite adequately. No-one needs to dig deeper
to pay for the STD costs."
"Student usage depends
a lot on how much access the kids have at home."
"A lot of programs
now come out on CD-Rom, too, which gives you the same research tools as
the internet but without the STD connection costs. The latest computer
roll-out put may 50 with CD players in the larger school, 20 in medium
schools and 10 in the smaller schools. At Copper Creek School with 18
students there are more computers than children. They've all got CD-Rom
capacity."
"Each school by May
1999 will have 2 E-mail accounts - one for the principal and one for the
administration to create a Statewide school network. There'll be 6,000
accounts Statewide with a central E-mail server, a browser and a roaming
facility."
"At Moree East every
teacher has a computer with intranet. Every classroom has a computer -
usually a colour Macintosh. They can use the IMACs in the computer lab
as well." "Moree East has implemented its own optic fibre network. Teachers
load in their student assessment data which goes onto a central file which
the Principal can access. At the beginning of each year every student
is benchmarked."
"That's where computers
in schools falls down, though. There's a lot of staff who are reluctant
to let the students use it because they're not computer literate themselves.
Kids know more than they do in a lot of areas."
"To address this
the department has introduced the TILT training program: Technology in
Learning and Teaching. This is the fourth year. When it first started
it was very hard to get teachers to participate. In 1999 we have 80 places
across the Moree District over 6 months. It's a four-day commitment. More
than 100 have wanted to participate."
"There are places
where there's a lack of casual teachers to mind the classes while the
teachers go and do their training and development." "When a teacher takes
time off for training and other in-service, it gets a lot of parents offside.
The kids are dealing with too many different faces and it's really disruptive."
Incentive transfers
"As far as incentives
go, the Federation is concerned about the lack of incentives not only
to get people to come out to the rural areas but also to get people to
stay. The Coalition put forward a proposition that experienced teachers
could be paid 10% of their salary to go and stay in country areas on a
contract for three years. I don't feel that would work. They'd lose at
least half of that in tax bringing it down to about $2,500. You're disrupting
your family, worrying about what to do with your house in Sydney, finding
accommodation in the bush - it just isn't practical. What about removal
expenses? You need something more than that.
"Once they do get
out here and stay, there comes a time - say after 24 or 25 years - when
they do want to move back to the coast or back to the city but they find
they're stuck out here. That is preventing people from wanting to come
out because they don't want to get stuck here. There's a shortage of positions
back on the coast because they're filled up with incentive transfers and
nominated transfers. If they're not in an incentive school then their
chances of getting back to the coast are very limited."
"Bingara and Warialda
are not incentive transfer schools. Some isolated schools like Lightening
Ridge a teacher only has to stay 2 years (8 point schools) whereas in
Walgett, for example, it's a 6 point school where the teacher has to stay
3 years."
"The current program
in place is because of the difficulty in getting people to come out here.
It's an attraction program. Now we're having difficulties getting people
to stay. So now we have to devise a retention program. There are ways
of doing it: such as additional superannuation points or a payment at
the end of two years."
"Rent is a problem,
too. Teacher housing goes on the market value in the town. In a place
like Mungindi a teacher can be paying a much, much higher rent than someone
over on the coast. The cotton industry pushes the rents up."
"They pay $180 for
a 2-bedroom flat."
"I think, too, the
problem with living out further is when you haven't got time to go and
seek a doctor. When the time is allowed, you might not be able to get
an appointment. For a doctor's appointment it can take two weeks; two
years for a dentist. If you're someone with a young family, who do you
get to take your child 100 km to a specialist when you're supposed to
be teaching?"
"We have an incentive
package for Principals which is conditional on the first round of applicants
being inadequate. With the permission of the Minister we can offer a salary
one step above that for the school, use of a car for three years and some
free kilometres for each year, and free rent. The package is negotiable
and the components can be mixed up to suit the person's needs."
Other issues for
teachers
"Probably our big
issue is casuals. We feel you can't really attract casual, particularly
to the small outlying schools. They have to drive 200 km a day or even
further to get to the school, do four hours of work and drive back again.
With most casual work you get paid more if you're a casual. With teaching
it's the opposite. You get $10,000 less as a casual teacher per year.
They don't get paid travel time or petrol. And if you're only there four
hours you don't even get recess."
"There are fewer
teachers being trained, fewer teachers and hence fewer casual teachers."
Moree inter-agency
co-operation
"A community development
is the Moree Place Management project. This project has grown out of a
need for a more co-operative approach to deliver government services better.
It's different flavour is that it's involved also with local government
and the business community as well as government agencies: police, juvenile
justice, TAFE, health system, DOCS, housing all made a commitment to contribute
$10,000 a year for three years. As well as that the shire council is contributing
about $30,000 including the car. It employs a Place Manager to develop
ownership and pride in the community. It tries to deal with some of the
problems with youth lawlessness in some precincts.
Last
updated 2 December 2001.