How do children who live in the outback receive their education?

Question

This is one of the questions from 'Around the world in 180 days' workbook. I have searched everywhere and I cannot find an answer! Please help!

Answer 1

If parents have the necessary knowledge and/or resources, the parents can simply teach them.

Here's some other info:

http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/researcha...

Answer 2

WooHoo! Now...where do I start...

I'm 15 and one of 9 siblings growing up in the outback - our's is a cattle station running approx 6,300 head in Remote Central Australia;we're a 2 hour drive from the closest township, 4 hours from the closest town and 16 hours from the city.

In our family nowadays all the kids are home educated; unschooled to be exact.

Traditionally kids up here did School of the Air (SOTA) between kindie and the end of year 6/7 before going away to boarding school for high school. SOTA is what the first poster was alluding to although lessons were never done by cb radio; there were two options available - to do your schooling either through a mixture of correspondence classes and radio lessons (transmitted using the HF/VHF radio network usually in conjunction with the RFDS [Flying Doctor] ) or do your schooling exclusively by correspondence. The first SOTA opened in 1951 in Alice Springs, NT (  http://www.assoa.nt.edu.au  ).

The various States have long offered correspondence courses for kids in remote areas, going way back to about 1900. In addition it was common place for parents to employ a governess to help their kids with their lessons. We've had govies in the past and there are still a number of families who employ them.

Nowadays various changes up here mean that, whilst boarding school is still an option, fewer kids than ever are going away to school. The SOTAs are now officially renamed as the School of Distance Education and are running as cyber schools broadcasting their classes over the web rather than HF radio whilst the States also now offer distance education (kindie to year 12/13) through their own cyber schools (e.g.  http://www.ntoec.nt.edu.au/site/frontpag... http://www.openaccess.edu.au

http://www.side.wa.edu.au  )  

Alternatively there are some schools in regional towns up here. A school's catchment area extends to all kids who live within a 2 hour drive from the school, hence kids can easily spend 4 hours a day, every day going to & from school. Such schools are mainly public; there are a handful of private schools and where they exist, the law says they have to work for the benefit of all kids, fee paying or not. In days gone by, it was common place for government schools to offer their students accomodation in a hostel during term-time but these days, the vast majority (if not all) of the hostels have long since been closed down; Apparently there are still a few government hostels in South Australia.

Some mining companies etc provide schools in their camps for the kids of their employees.

There used to be a programme running in the Northern Territory whereby the government would provide (and pay for) a school to be established and staffed on larger stations. Not sure if it is still going but I know the Tapps on Killarney Station had a govt sponsored teacher (he was dutch!) back in the late 70s/early 80s. Okay I only know that cuz my mum had a massive crush on one of the Tapp boys back then, lol!

If you're koorie up here, things are more precarious. Aboriginal kids can enrol in SOTA/SDE but to do so, they've got to have someone at home who can supervise and help them with their lessons...in english! If all the adults in your family only speak your traditional koori languages then you're effectively shut out of the cyber-schools.

There are also some Aboriginal community schools (  http://www.aics.wa.edu.au  ). The oldest Aboriginal school in Australia is the one on Strelley Station; it was started in 1976 (  http://www.aics.wa.edu.au/content/thesch...  ). There also a few Aboriginal high schools in regional centres which offer koori kids a boarding school education.

Answer 3

it used to be with a cb radio but i would think the computer is used now