Australia's children must all be given a good educational opportunity

• We were told that specialist music, drama, art and language teachers were hard to find. But we were also told of difficulties in relation to maths and science teachers and, most surprisingly of all, the difficulty in finding an agriculture teacher in some of the richest agricultural areas of South Australia.

The consequences of this situation are stark. It divides our nation. It harms all Australians when some Australians are denied the opportunities and resources they need to achieve their full potential.

What we recommended

When it came to framing our 73 recommendations, we asked ourselves one question: what is necessary to ensure that, by the age of 18, each child in Australia has received the education he or she requires to participate to his or her full potential in the social, economic, political and cultural life of the community? We developed our recommendations with our eyes firmly fixed on the cost implications. We did not want to recommend some prohibitively expensive educational utopia that was incapable of realisation. We framed our recommendations not around what was the maximum or even the desirable but what was the bare minimum necessary for compliance with Australia’s human rights commitments.

A national strategy for rural and remote education

The Inquiry recommended a national strategy for rural and remote education with state and territory components. The strategy should include not only schools but also the necessary ancillary services, programs and policies, such as telecommunications, transport, subsidies and allowances to families and students, sporting and recreational facilities, teacher training and regional planning. The strategy should be prepared by the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, which brings together all federal, state and territory ministers with direct responsibilities in these areas. The strategy should incorporate a whole-of-government approach at each level, ensuring, for example, the coordination of schooling, transport and information technology services, the provision of health and nutrition services so that children are well enough to learn, and so on. The strategy should also identify the necessary resources for its implementation and ensure that those resources are committed by all levels of government rather than becoming another political football or another example of buck-passing.

The strategy should also provide for greatly enhanced collaboration across school sectors. We visited many towns where there were both government and non-government (usually Catholic) schools. In most instances both were struggling to meet the needs of their students. Neither had the resources to offer the range of curriculum choice students wanted and needed and neither had the facilities students in cities take for granted. Yet there was rarely any cooperation between them to share resources or facilities.

The national strategy should provide for and encourage the development of local partnerships across all education sectors with local community and business participation. This has begun nationally in the cooperation between schools and TAFE in vocational education programs. These need to be supported and extended. But the kinds of partnerships needed in local communities will involve more than that.

Every child is entitled to an education that develops his or her personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential. Local inter-agency partnerships have the best chance of responding to each child’s needs. Local partnerships can also support teachers, especially those who are new to teaching or new to country life. They can develop local leaders and offer familiar role models to local children, and they can assist children into productive work within their own communities. But they must have enough funding, be given decision-making responsibilities and include all relevant groups, especially parents and the children themselves. They must be part of the national strategy so that they receive endorsement and support from all levels of government.

Will it be implemented: our second question

We posed a second question: are we as a national community prepared to do whatever is necessary to ensure adequate education for every child in rural and remote Australia? Our recommendations report was tabled in federal parliament last June, but there has been no comprehensive response from the federal government. Country Australians are anxious for an answer to that question. And they are not prepared to wait much longer.

As I visited regional, rural and remote parts of Australia throughout 1998, 1999 and 2000, I heard the concerns of country people. They told me many things, including their concerns about the additional cost of living generally and of petrol prices in particular outside the capital cities. But these issues were subordinate to their far deeper concerns about the education and prospects of their children and young people. Without exception, every community we visited expressed anxiety about whether children had access to the quality education they needed to ensure them a future, hopefully in their own town or region but, failing that, then outside it. They feared that their children were slipping further behind, that their educational opportunities were far less than those of city children, that as result their children could not compete with the skills and qualifications of city children and so they might not have a future as contributing members of the broader Australian community. They expect these issues to be addressed as a top priority, more important by far than a reduction of 1.5 cents in the price of a litre of petrol.

Last year the federal government responded to rural health needs with substantial commitments in the 2000-01 budget. There was little by way of additional funding or new program initiatives to meet rural education needs. This year, the government released its Innovations Statement. Again, there was little for rural education. If it can find $2.6 billion to reduce petrol prices, then it can find enough to ensure a good education for rural children and young people. With talk of recession in the air the Treasurer is telling us that the federal government does not have additional resources. If so, then it will have to postpone some other, less pressing area of expenditure, like the large increases in defence spending announced last year. Defence can wait; rural education cannot. Money spent on education is money well spent. It is investment in our nation’s future and in the future of our children.

The Opposition has no capacity to act at once but it can and must make firm promises. It speaks of its commitment to a Knowledge Nation but at this stage there is nothing specific to meet rural education needs. There has to be. Rural communities are looking for the detail, for the specifics of what the Opposition will do if elected. There will be electoral reward for a positive response and electoral punishment if these needs are ignored.

The reports of the Human Rights Commission’s National Inquiry into Rural and Remote Education provide a blueprint for the government and the opposition to develop new policies and programs and to find funds for a fairer deal for country children and young people. The many thousands of country people who contributed to those reports and others who share their views expect that blueprint to be endorsed and implemented.