That ICPA (Aust) continue to advocate to the Minister for Social Services and the Minister for Education to establish a Distance Education Teaching Allowance, in recognition of the essential role that the home tutor plays in educating rural and remote students via distance education.
The introduction of a Distance Education Teaching Allowance (DETA) would provide critical financial recognition of the essential work performed by home tutors or supervisors who deliver education to students enrolled in Schools of Distance Education across Australia.
For geographically isolated families, Distance Education is often the only available option for primary and secondary schooling. Under current federal requirements, students enrolled in Distance Education must receive appropriate supervision during their learning. In practice, this responsibility commonly falls to a parent—usually the mother—or a paid home tutor. As the Australian Government’s own Distance Education policies note, this supervision may be provided by “an employee or parent,” highlighting that direct teaching support is a mandatory component of distance learning.
In many cases, this requirement results in a parent needing to forgo paid employment on the property, in the community, or at an outstation, in order to educate their children. This significantly impacts household income, placing further financial strain on already isolated families. When families do employ a home tutor, the costs are substantial. Home tutors are commonly paid between $50,000 and $75,000 per year, depending on experience and location. In addition to wages, families are typically responsible for providing accommodation, meals, internet, and other living expenses, which significantly increases the total outlay.
This means that families who employ a home tutor are effectively paying award wages to access public education—a cost burden not borne by families whose children attend face-to-face schools. This inequity undermines the principle of universal access to free public education in Australia.
To address this, we recommend the establishment of a Distance Education Teaching Allowance (DETA). This allowance would recognise and help offset the substantial costs associated with employing or providing supervision for distance education students.
We further propose that DETA be incorporated into the existing Assistance for Isolated Children (AIC) framework. Since eligibility for AIC already reflects the educational and geographic disadvantage of the family, it is highly likely that those eligible for AIC would also qualify for DETA. Integrating the two would simplify the application process and ensure that support is targeted efficiently to the families who need it most.
Case Study 1:
Our business requires us to travel & work all throughout remote Australia installing water bores for stock & crops. We also have a fodder farm & tourist attraction. With all our businesses it requires us to work 7 days a week. My husband & I run all these businesses & with living so remote we require the services of a governess. We have employed a governess for the past 8 years now with another 7 years to go. In total for the past 8 years, we have paid out $432,000 in wages plus super, food, accommodation & WiFi. This has a massive impact on our finances and profits but if we didn’t have a governess then we wouldn’t be able to work and in turn wouldn’t be able to afford to even educate or feed our family or live where we do!
Case Study 2:
In the 9-and-a-half years that I have been teaching my children through our distance education school, I have only been able to complete work on the station outside of the classroom in a parttime capacity, heavily reducing the potential income I have been able to earn, and therefore reducing our entire family income. It is a government requirement that students on distance education schools MUST have appropriate supervision while completing their lessons. Using my time to supervise and educate my children means that I'm receiving only half of the income I could be earning if I was able to work fulltime on the station, costing me personally $24,000 per year. Once again, this cost is for my children to receive a public education, a supposedly free system in Australia.
If I were to stop educating my children and work fulltime on the station, I would be required by the government’s distance education rules to employ a Home Tutor to instead supervise my children. Depending on wage agreements, a Home Tutor can be paid anywhere from $25,000-$50,000 per year, as well as usually being offered accommodation, meals, and services such as internet and utilities as part of their wage package. This means that while my personal wage would be $24,000 higher, our costs as a family to employ someone to educate our children would be at least $25,000 higher, which makes the possibility of employing a Home Tutor completely unviable for us. I would love to see the Australian Government introduce a Distance Education Teaching Allowance to recognise the vital work that Home Tutors/parents of isolated students do, and to help offset the costs of employing a Home Tutor/the costs of lost wages from parents who fulfil this role.
