Gains for rural students

The success at the last Federal election of the three Independents from regional areas did wonders to highlight the need for more attention to regional issues, including education. The imminent Victorian state election has again shown how looming elections do wonders to focus attention on rural and regional issues. Premier Brumby has announced several measures "to shore up its educational credentials in country Victoria" (The Age, 29 October 2010). Some of the 'dangling carrots' are not likely to have much impact. For example, subsidising more relief teachers and paying for rural teachers to attend professional learning courses in the city might be welcome financially but might in practice be irrelevant for many. In a lot of rural and especially remote areas, the problem is lack of relief teachers, not lack of money to pay them. Similarly, one reason many teachers and especially teaching principals in small schools do not attend professional learning courses is related to this lack of relief teachers. As well, it is common for many rural teachers to have to travel long distances by road to get to the site of the course, making an overnight or two‐night stay also necessary. Given the number of days most teachers in senior positions need to be away from school as it is, many choose not to take even more time away to attend a professional learning course.