28 October 2021

Hear all about the new Country Education Strategy and the plan to ensure our students in regional South Australia can achieve their best.

Show Notes

• Country education website

Transcript

Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome back to Teach the podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. I'm Dale Atkinson from the Department for Education and today we're talking about education in the country with a man who's spent a fair bit of the last 12 months touring our regions to develop our first ever country education strategy, that man is  Luke Fraser, the director of Government Relations and Policy. Welcome to you Luke.

Luke Fraser: Thanks for having me.

Dale Atkinson: Can you explain why it is that we are now looking at doing a country education strategy?

Luke Fraser: I think for us, we've got a bold vision at the moment we're getting after world-class, but we know that depending on the settings and depending on where you are and what's going on, there needs a specific focus.

So, so we know that even in the country, when we say countrywe've got isolated schools, we've got regional hubs. There's a lot of different nuances to what happens in the country and so what we've decided is that we need a point of view on, on, [00:01:00] on how to support, um, the particular challenges, the particular opportunities that occur in the country when it comes to teaching and, and education and care. So we've kind of gotten after that and we want to make sure that we've got a particular focus to our strategic direction in the country.

Dale Atkinson: One of the major parts of developing this strategy was going out and meeting with the principals, meeting with teachers out in country areas, talking to governing councils and other representative from the regions. And what were they telling you about the pinch points for them specifically as a country or a regional school?

Luke Fraser: I think the interesting thing is all of the perspectives are different. So we spent time in the far west, we spent time in the, in the sort of mid north places like Lower Eyre Peninsula, regional hubs, like Mount Gambier, but also the Riverland and Southeast and so forth. And so it's good to take those different perspectives because the regions are different. But when you start to break down the differences in perspectives, students told us a lot about three things, continue to resonate every time. And that was the wellbeing of their peers um, particularly they're really hot [00:02:00] on the career opportunities that they can or can't see.

And then the, the subjects that they love to learn, particularly as they're going through SACE and starting to decide about their future. When you talk to leaders, it was, you know, there was heavy emphasis on workforce challenges and so forth. And, and that seemed to resonate through our Aboriginal support staff as well.

And then parents talked to us about kind of different stuff, like, like ICT enablers and how do they connect with their schools digitally. So the perspective really matter when you're doing a piece of work like this, because they are all different.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. So the, the individual issues at a site level are unique, but there is some sort of key themes that kind of came out through the research work. And I'm just going to go through the three main goals that you've identified in the strategy, which are, um, number one, quality leadership and expert teaching in every country, school and preschool. Number two is better access to digital infrastructure, student support services and business admin systems for country schools and preschools.

And number three is access to quality learning and career study and training [00:03:00] opportunities for country, kids and young people. So we might go through those just, um, just one at a time and, and have a look at, um, how are we going to address those. Issues that have been identified out there. So the first one around quality leadership and expert teaching in every country, school and preschool, what's going to be the approach in terms of helping to support that out in that regions?

Luke Fraser: One of the first things that we saw as a big opportunity is really strengthening the, kind of what we call the sort of pipeline of, of teachers that come into school. So we know that a lot of teachers get their first start, you know, in country regions, but there's a lot of work that can be done to strengthen that.

So. So we're going to be as part of this strategy, we're going to be working with the universities in particular, to make sure that when teachers, uh, are in training with the universities that they're getting to do practicums that are for the right period of time so that they can immerse themselves in the country.

We'll also be reducing barriers. So we know that some of our best and brightest teachers that are studying. They might not, um, take up practicums in the [00:04:00] country because let's say they're working at IGA on the weekends. And actually it's, it's a cost burden for them to come and do that work for a decent chunk of time.

So we're going to be funding a lot of those barriers that exists to make sure that when they're making a decision about coming to the country, it can be one that's based on a good experience in a decent chunk of time out there. And they can make that decision either way. But when they do make a choice, when they're thinking, 'Yep, I think I can come out and work in the country.' We've got a secondary program that we're kind of building that's going to be about the transition between when they decide that they're going to teach in their penultimate year in the country and then kind of really making that a smoother transition. So we're going to be looking at things like part-time work, but they can do in a country school where they can start to bond to a particular school, making sure that there's onboarding supports for them.

And you know, where, where are they going to live all these kinds of things when they're making the big leap we want to make that smoother for them. So we'll we'll invest some time and funds and effort into, into that process so that, you know, they're not just kind of lobbying in and, and sort of, [00:05:00] um, landing and, and it's, and it's a tricky, tricky time.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. I mean the essential thing, I think that was relayed in this process is that to capture some of these younger people as they go out there at age 20 21, 22 for their first teaching experience that really they've got to be part of the community and help to form those connections and bonds quite early. That's right. Isn't it?

Luke Fraser: Absolutely. And, and, you know, if we can make that easier and smoother for them, a lot of our great principals and, and great teachers out in the country have kind of found a life out there and they, and they just love it. They wouldn't come back to the metro for quids. So, so we want to kind of just make that easier so that they can settle their roots in the country and enjoy it.

Dale Atkinson: So onto the second aim of the three goals, one of the things we're looking at is better access to student support services. And I know that there's some issues around particularly things like psychological support, speech therapy, which may not be particularly well serviced in the regions that we're looking to address as well.

Luke Fraser: Yeah, absolutely. This was one of those things in our work out in the country is just loud and clear [00:06:00] how much pressure on our teachers, when some of those supports for students with needs aren't available or aren't coming quickly enough. And so, um, we're alive to that, and we heard that call and, and so one of the pieces of work we're going to do at the moment, we've just started to recruit at the moment.

Actually, some people who are going to be working, um, particularly in speech pathology and psychology, which the two of the pain point areas and doing more telehealth in that area for the country. So, we know that just like our teachers and our sort of allied health practitioners, it's a struggle for our allied health people to get good people and keep them out in the country as well.

But what we think is going to be really helpful is to increase our telehealth, which will help us with reach because we might not always be able to get out there every time to do psychology work with students or so forth. But tele health is one of those things that's, that's better than nothing. So we're going to be focusing on that to make sure that there is somebody there that can support a particular student and, and support the teacher to support them with whatever needs they have.

[00:07:00] The other thing that we're going to be doing in, in this sort of, um, what we call the triple S space or the student support services space is investing in a, and we're just going through it with procurement now um working with private providers. So we might not be able to get our, um, psychologists out to a particular region, but there might be private providers that can and do work out in those areas. So, so leveraging the private sector. To make sure we've got better rates and better quality in the service that we're providing.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. It's one of the most important, powerful things. I think particularly out in the regions, that's going to be a bit of a game changer for a lot of the schools. One of the things that COVID 19 has taught us is just how much digital access is such an essential service for everything. We've had seven. We've been lucky, actually. I think we've had seven statewide remote learning days since the pandemic began but if anything, that's highlighted the need for quality systems. And it has been over the years, a disparity of access to digital infrastructure in the regions. Now the SWIFT program to connect schools to [00:08:00] fast, reliable internet services is, is part of the piece of the puzzle. But you've identified something else as well for, for country schools?

Luke Fraser: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think we've made brilliant gains in sort of getting high speed internet to all of our schools now. And that's a big increase and a big boost for our schools, but then that's not really worth much unless you have good internal infrastructure, cabling, servers, these types of things.

And so one of the things that we've noticed and we've started to do work in our ICT team has been going out to some of our schools and they do what they call a health check. But what that actually means is specialists in ICT infrastructure will go out and look at what's going on in terms of the internal infrastructure and they'll make an assessment.

And then, and then we basically negotiate and, and fund that infrastructure to be built up to a world-class standard. And it's made huge gains already but what we're doing through the country strategy is accelerating that work. So we've got guys out there at the moment that are doing what we call these health checks.

So they'll be out to our schools. They've almost been to all of our country schools now um [00:09:00] just taking a look at what's going on. By the end of this financial year, we're going to have upgrades to all of our internal servers and so forth. And that's going to mean that the speed of our internet, the access that kids get to work digitally and our teachers get to work digitally as well is just going to be a huge boost for us. So really proud of that work is happening right now.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. It's going to be a lot of exciting applications that, uh, that come out of that. And I think that's partially linked the digital access to, to the final point, which is around how we broaden curriculum options for the country kids, how we make pathways more available to them. What are some of the steps we're going to be looking at there?

Luke Fraser: That's a really important one. And it kind of cuts through the main thing here, which is how do we support the students to, to learn the things they love to learn. And so one of the things we sort of came across in in our, in our work and it's happening in other jurisdictions as well in country areas is, is the idea of local curriculum delivery across a given.

Yeah. We know that the workforce challenges remain and we're looking to solve those, but in the interim, there's really innovative work that's happening in patches, around [00:10:00] schools, working together to make sure that, you know, if a student wants to study, um, science in for their SACE they can access a, a teacher in a, a neighbouring country school. Um, and they can do that as part of their normal studies at their school. And so that's been work that's kind of already starting to happen and has happened in patches and where we're doubling down on that and making sure that we're going to work in sort of supporting that. So, so I think the department needs to play a role.

So there's kind of. You know, there's a lot of support that can be provided to make that happen in terms of coordination of the work. And then sort of some of the more nuanced work around sort of teaching and learning and practice. And so we're going to kind of get in and sort of support the local delivery that occurs in patches.

And then start to talk about the good practices happening because everyone's kind of doing it differently, some works some doesn't work. And so we're going to kind of put a spotlight on that to make sure that the offering across a given area or a particular student is there so that they can study the things that they want to, they want to learn, but also do it with teachers that are [00:11:00] highly skilled in that area, that teaching in their own discipline that they love what they do.

Dale Atkinson: It is exciting sort of right across the board really. And I guess one of the things that's really important is that, and I'm holding in my hand a lovely glossy brochure setting out what the country education strategy looks like, but this is not going to be sort of a static kind of piece of work that actually country perspectives are going to be something that is going to be built in more broadly to policy direction and policy development within the department. Can you explain how that's going to work?

Luke Fraser: One of the great things that we've been able to do through as we've developed this work is really bring the right voices to the table will be at some of our students.

We've been working with the rural youth ambassadors, for example, who've had had a lot to say and been really impactful in how we've thought about this, but also some of our country leaders and people that are passionate about country education. So I think what we're going to be doing through this is setting up a country education reference group that can support that department.

We've got a big reform agenda that we're getting after. So we we're doing work in VET we're doing work in, in improvements to work force, lot of different [00:12:00] areas where we're going after system level impact and country needs to be at the table in that pursuit of how we do that. And because of those nuances and differences in how country education operates.

So, so we'll be setting up a country education reference group. That's going to be talking to our people who are leading reform, be it policy or practice, and that'll be a continual voice. And I think that's going to be the real game changer as part of this strategy is making sure that we're thinking about when we're designing, how we operate, making sure that we're paying attention to the voices that matter in the country to.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, as part of this, we've created a dedicated country education section on the website. Um, and there'll be some information in the show notes about how to access that, which includes links through to the country education strategy. You can go there and find a bit more information about what Luke and his team have been doing over the last 12 to 18 months.

It's a very exciting space. There's going to be a lot of things rolling out over the next three years. It's a seven year strategy though. So there's going to be some pretty broad horizon stuff that's, uh, that's going to be coming through. So stay [00:13:00] tuned over the next few years to see, um, the announcements in some of these programs that are going to be rolling out.

So Luke, this is exciting work. Thanks for your time. Good luck.

Luke Fraser: Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.