That ICPA (Aust) continues to advocate to the Australian Government to investigate and implement equitable remuneration for isolated classroom supervisors (RICS) essential to the delivery of distance education programs.
Distance education students rely heavily on the presence of a classroom supervisor or home tutor to support daily learning, lesson delivery, supervision, assessment tasks and communication with teaching staff.
Unlike mainstream schooling, where supervision is provided within the education system, geographically isolated families are solely responsible for providing this essential educational support.
This creates substantial financial and workforce pressures on isolated families, particularly where:
• a parent must reduce or cease employment,
• a supervisor must be employed privately
• or educational supervision occurs alongside farm, station or business operations.
The role of the isolated classroom supervisor is fundamental to the successful delivery of distance education and should be formally recognised within educational support frameworks.
ICPA (Aust) believes geographically isolated families should not be financially disadvantaged for accessing education through distance delivery.
