That ICPA (Aust) advocate to the Minister for Social Services for an increase to the Assistance for Isolated Children Distance Education Allowance to reflect and assist with the true cost of educating geographically isolated children where distance education is the only choice.
Currently, the AIC provides an allowance for assistance for families with children who live in an isolated area, have a disability or have special health needs. The AIC Distance Education Allowance is currently approximately $1,300 per child, per term for a child enrolled in compulsory schooling.
As a condition of enrolment to school of the air, it is a requirement for students to have adequate supervision and environment to undertake their studies. Although the AIC does alleviate a small part of the cost, the current allowance per child does not come close to the actual cost borne by the families of Distance Education students, many families employ a Home Tutor, or one parent must take on the responsibility of supervising children in the Distance Education classroom. The means that the family must forgo an income or one parent must take a step back from their role in the family business.
ICPA (Aust) has been advocating for some time for a Distance Education Teaching Subsidy, without success. It is disappointing that the government have not come to the table with assisting our isolated families who have no other choice than to educate their children via distance education and we applaud and commend the ICPA on all levels for all their diligence in pursuing the ongoing issue.
The fact stands, while the AIC Distance Education Allowance does help, it does not even come close to subsidising the cost of isolated families undertaking compulsory government funded education. In the situation where a family or company employs a home tutor, this needs to be a fulltime role. It is not practical for a home tutor to be employed for the 40 weeks of school, due to the isolated location of many of the families it is incredibly expensive and impractical for a home tutor to be ‘sent away’ during school holidays. To attract and retain a home tutor, continuation of employment is required not only for the hours spent supervising in the school room, but also for preparation and set up of the schoolroom, submission of the students work and keeping the area clean and tidy. Further to this the Home Tutor must be provided with board and keep, annual leave and superannuation entitlements in line with fair work guidelines. Further to the Home Tutors wage, internet must be installed and maintained, classroom furniture and resources must be provided, which are all out of pocket expenses for the families.
A substantial increase to the AIC needs to be considered and then implemented in order to support these families. Many young families leave remote Australia because they simply cannot afford the huge costs incurred in the pursuit of educating their children via distance education, further to this we run the risk of the businesses potentially overlooking families when considering employment options because it simply costs so much, and there is little relief provided to support these businesses.
