In recent years there has been concern about the equitable provision of education services across metropolitan and rural areas in Australia (Lunn 1997). In particular, much of the debate has revolved around the allocation and distribution of educational and community based resources and the extent to which they hnpact on the lives of teachers living aud working in geographicaliy isolated in areas. Recent political and social debate has highlighted a perceived disenfranchisement and marginalisation of rural and remote community which may be reflected in students learning outcomes in these areas. In this paper we examine two aspects of this debate. Firstly, what issues do local community members highlight as needing to be addressed, in terms of preparing, attracting and retaining teachers for teaching positions in rural and remote areas. Secondly, how can pre-service education courses incorporate the perceived needs of the local community into current programs. In particular, we examine the trial of a mentor/internship program underway at Queensland University of Technology. The program aims to develop partnerships between schools, university, education departments and local communities to better prepare beginning teachers for the particular needs of the rural community.
This paper reports on a collaborative project which aims to improve the preparation of preservice teachers for teaching in rural and remote schools. Queensland University of Technology (QUT) has joined with Education Queensland, Priority Country Area Program (PCAP), the Queensland Teachers' Union (QTU) and the Board of Teacher Registration (BTR) to trial an internship for 4th year Bachelor of Education students in isolated schools in Queensland. The ultimate goal of the project is to improve the quality of teaching and learning in remote and isolated areas. The project will trial the use of a mentor/intern model of professional development where students and teachers work together over a six week period and share a normal teaching work load. Experienced teachers will be given the opportunity to work closely with student teachers nearing the end of the pre-service program while the student teachers will gain from the experience of teachers familiar with special needs of schools in these communities.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.