That ICPA (Aust) requests that the Minister for Communications and the Minister for Education encourage state and territory governments to deliver and maintain a high-speed internet connection to geographically isolated families with children enrolled in Schools of Distance Education and Schools of the Air at no cost to the families.
Children who are receiving an education via schools of distance education are faced with a myriad of challenges when it comes to interacting with their teachers and classmates. They complete their daily school lessons, assemblies, sports lessons, private learning assessments, reading tasks, group activities and even singing lessons all via the home school room computer on platforms such as Microsoft Teams, React, Zoom and more.
If states and territories are not providing families (enrolled in Schools of distance Education) with HighSpeed internet connection to the home school rooms of these geographically isolated children, they face major disruptions to the quality of their learning experience. Poor connection, sound, images may hamper their daily lessons and cause disruptions for the other children on the lesson.
The ONLY way our children are accessing their public education in these remote locations is via a satellite internet connection. If, over time, this connection has become slow or obsolete, then it is the responsibility of the Department of Education to ensure it is upgraded.
In our case, The NT Government is providing the STARS network for Schools of Distance Education. However, instead of upgrading their internet to a High Speed and reliable service, they are recommending that the schools direct families to supply their own High Speed internet. This is highly distressing and disappointing.
