Human Rights and EO Commission on Rural School Education
Below I have an edited highlight from Rural and Remote School Education - A Survey for the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
Helen Stokes, John Stafford, Roger Holdsworth
Youth Research Centre, University of Melbourne, Vic 3010
full document here
The greatest education ‘disadvantage’ faced by people in rural and remote locations is that to gain access to an education - any education - they have to pay more. This can include the cost of travel, of board, loss of income, excursions and so on. There is provision of financial assistance (see below) but parents report that this fails to meet costs - in the end, parents have to pay. While some families can afford these costs, for others access to any form of education is a financial burden - and one that many school students assist in meeting through extensive part-time work. Other families find the burden too great, and students drop out of school early: retention rates in rural and remote areas are significantly lower than those in urban areas. Access to education is thus inequitable within the Australian community. The principles of access to school buses and other transport systems that are provided, are not clearly understood within rural and remote communities. There are systemic barriers; for example in remote areas, with a sparse population, there is a requirement for minimum numbers of students in order to ‘justify’ or ‘qualify’ for provision of a bus service. In the absence of such provision, school children are then dependent on parents to drive them to a bus route, to the boarding school, to a townbased school, to a Distance Education group day or to an extra-curricular activity.
Again, such family-provided transport costs time and money.