“That ICPA Qld lobbies the Queensland Department of Education (DoE) to develop and retain adequately resource comprehensive paper-based curriculum delivery options in the form of Independent Learning Materials (ILMs), within Schools of Distance Education (SDE) that are fit for purpose and are a critical resource to ensure geographically isolated students continue to receive equitable, practical and flexible access to curriculum delivery.”
Geographically isolated students face unique educational circumstances that differ significantly from those experienced in regional and urban settings. For many remote families, comprehensive paper-based curriculum resources remain essential to ensuring continuity of learning, practical home classroom delivery and equitable educational access.
Many geographically isolated families continue to manage variable internet connectivity, service interruptions, limited bandwidth, increased data usage costs, multi-age home classrooms and the demands of station life. Remote families also regularly travel hundreds of kilometres for essential services, appointments, sporting events and boarding school commitments. Educational delivery models must therefore provide the flexibility required to accommodate the realities of remote living and should not assume metropolitan-level connectivity or rigid online access requirements.
The Curriculum Support Materials (CSMs) currently proposed as an alternative to ILMs are not fit for purpose as a standalone curriculum delivery model for geographically isolated students. Families report that the CSMs function primarily as tutor support resources rather than comprehensive teaching materials and do not provide full curriculum coverage.
Current CSM delivery provides approximately eight support materials within a 32-lesson unit, equating to resources for only one quarter of the curriculum content. This creates significant reliance on additional online delivery, direct teacher instruction and increased parent or home tutor interpretation to fill curriculum gaps.
As a result, geographically isolated students are not being provided with equivalent access to comprehensive curriculum delivery when compared with urban and regional students.
The ILMs model has a long history of delivering reliable, practical, flexible and equitable curriculum access for geographically isolated students across Queensland. Technology should enhance educational delivery for remote students, not replace proven curriculum models that support effective teaching and learning within remote home classrooms.
We strongly urge the Department of Education to truly understand what does and doesn’t work for our geographically isolated families and retain properly resourced ILMs and comprehensive paper-based curriculum delivery options within SDE.
