Rural and Remote Education - WA
Rural
and Remote Education - WA
Extracts from submissions
Submissions on education
funding
A. Brooker,
Geraldton Grammar School, WA
"The Educational
Resources Index on which government funding is based is dependent on fees
charged. For this reason rural schools have the same income as their city
counterparts. However, given the generally higher prices of goods and
services, schools can buy less for their dollar. Equity suggests that
whatever the system is used to assess a schools recurrent government grants
the school's remoteness should be a factor. In this respect a change from
using the Educational Resources Index to Socio Economic Status may go
part of the way towards redressing the balance."
Astra Warren,
Lesmurdie, WA
"I am a qualified
teacher with 40 years experience.now semi retired. Over the past 8 years
I have been taking tutor positions on stations in the Gascoyne-Murchison
area of Western Australia.
"I have a constant
stream of enquires seeking my help. My particular interest is remedial
English an attitude problems, but since I am a self funded retiree and
most stations are on a limited budget, I can only afford to take two or
three positions each year. The REVISE voluntary scheme is excellent in
its way, but does not address deeper problems which should have been solved
years earlier.
"My suggestion is
a funding initiative to pay normal salary rates to itinerant teachers
of experience prepared to be residential in the country, working within
the normal correspondence lessons, alongside School of the Air. Six weeks
would be my estimate of a minimum effective period, stretching to 1 or
2 terms if necessary."
Last
updated 2 December 2001.