Remote parents struggle as schools slash lesson plans

Vivien Fitzgerald, a seven-year-old living on a remote cattle station, now faces an education gap as her school's "schools of the air" program phases out essential printable lesson materials. Her mother, Ellen Fitzgerald, explains that parents are increasingly left without a framework to support their children's learning when online classes are missed.

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Her English today has been cancelled because the teacher has got other commitments in the school, or might be away. But because that's only taught online, I don't have a framework for what to teach her during that period of time.

"Her English today has been cancelled because the teacher has got other commitments in the school, or might be away," Fitzgerald said. "But because that's only taught online, I don't have a framework for what to teach her during that period of time." This shift means parents must balance their own demanding work on the 24,000-hectare property with the role of "home tutor," often without the necessary curriculum-aligned guidance.

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We could actually say, 'We can't get to that on-air [lesson], we'll be in the paddock, so you can do your maths lesson in the paddock.'

Historically, "correspondence" or "papers", printable, step-by-step learning materials, have been crucial for distance education families. These materials provided flexibility, allowing parents to conduct lessons anywhere on the property, even when offline or during mustering. Now, with these resources disappearing, students like Vivien are spending more time online, a situation Fitzgerald describes as "a lot to ask a little person to sit on a screen and learn in a lecture style."

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Her time spent on air has more than doubled and it's a lot to ask a little person to sit on a screen and learn in a lecture style.

Winnie Batt, another parent with children in distance education, emphasized the necessity of the old materials. She used them daily to manage her multi-child classroom, especially on days with power outages, unstable internet, or when family medical appointments required travel. The phasing out of these materials raises concerns about educational equity for children in Australia's most remote regions.

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[That might be] on days when the power goes out, on days when you don't have stable internet, on days when you need to go mustering, on days when someone in the family has a major medical appointment [and] we have to go away together.