- for the radio program see The American School of the Air
School of the Air is a generic term for correspondence schools catering for the primary and early secondary education of children in remote and outback Australia where some or all classes were traditionally conducted by radio, although this is now being replaced by internet technology. In these areas, the school-age population is too small for a conventional school to be viable.
Video School of the Air
History
The first School of the Air lessons were officially sent from the Royal Flying Doctor Service in Alice Springs on 8 June 1951. The service celebrated its 50th jubilee on 9 May 2001, ahead of the real jubilee on 8 June. Each state of Australia that utilizes this means of training has well-documented checks and overviews of the service.
Maps School of the Air
Method
There are School of the Air programmes in all states except Tasmania.
School classes were conducted via shortwave radio from 2003 until 2009, after which most schools switched to wireless internet technologies to deliver lessons that include live one-way video feeds and clear two-way audio.
Each student has direct contact with a teacher in a major inland town such as Broken Hill, Alice Springs or Meekatharra. Each student typically spends one hour per day receiving group or individual lessons from the teacher, and the rest of the day working through the assigned materials with a parent, older sibling or a hired home-stay tutor.
Traditionally, the students received their course materials and returned their written work and projects to their hub centre using either the Royal Flying Doctor Service or post office services. However the extension of Internet services into the outback now enables more rapid review of each child's homework.
As the children are in isolated situations, the School of the Air is frequently their first chance of socialization with children outside their immediate family. This is supplemented by 3 or 4 annual gatherings where the children travel to the school to spend one week with their teacher and classmates.
Studies have shown that such education has a parity with if not better standard than traditional methods of schooling.
Awards
In 2009 as part of the Q150 celebrations, the School of the Air was announced as one of the Q150 Icons of Queensland for its role as an iconic "innovation and invention".
Schools of the Air
- Mount Isa, Queensland
- Charters Towers, Queensland
- Longreach, Queensland
- Charleville, Queensland
- Cairns, Queensland
- Katherine, Northern Territory
- Alice Springs, Northern Territory
- Broken Hill, New South Wales
- Tibooburra, New South Wales
- Port Hedland, Western Australia
- Port Augusta, South Australia
- Kimberley, Western Australia
- Carnarvon, Western Australia
- Kalgoorlie, Western Australia
- Meekatharra, Western Australia
- Victoria
See also
- Schools of Isolated and Distance Education
- Our Rural Magazine for an example of an earlier pre-radio forms of distant education communication in Western Australia
- Queensland School for Travelling Show Children
Notes
External links
- Australian Government Link - History for the School of the Air
Source of article : Wikipedia
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