ICPA supportive of Robbie Katter's efforts to address education drain

Katter's Australian Party leader and Traeger MP Robbie Katter has begun a petition to the state government in the wake of his and others' concerns that the transition of year 7 into secondary school, made in 2015, was harming small communities that don't have a secondary school.

In such situations, Mr Katter said, there were few options for continuing a child's schooling once they completed primary school.

"These days, once a child living in such a town finishes year 6, families either make the difficult decision to send their child, often as young as 11, away to boarding school, which in many instances is thousands of kilometres away," he said.

"(Or) they educate their child through the school of distance education, denying them daily social interaction and face-to-face learning support.

"Or, they pack up their lives and relocate to a city that provides a secondary school option."

His petition calls on the Queensland Parliament to provide a solution and he is hoping that people who are affected by the issue, or may benefit from the ability to keep their children home longer will have their say.

"The solution could be the establishment of learning facilities at the current primary schools that allow children in years 7-10 to learn through distance education with the support of teacher aides and daily interaction," he said. "Or the expansion of the current primary schools to accommodate year 7-10 students in the traditional learning manner."

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Isolated Children's Parents' Association Queensland president Louise Martin said they were supportive of initiatives that provided the best educational outcomes for geographically isolated students and their families.

"COVID offered a silver lining in school delivery," she said.

"The government should be able to supply classrooms and/or teacher aides to enable secondary students to access schooling virtually.

"Virtual learning is evolving rapidly to hopefully benefit all rural and remote students."

Ms Martin said a year 6 school such as Julia Creek was never going to go up to year 12 in today's circumstances, but the Education Department could support secondary students in communities such as that, within their own infrastructure.

"Somehow we need to support students who want to stay in their community and thrive," she said. "It's all about choice and providing the best educational outcomes for each person, based on their needs."

Mr Katter said the inconvenience for a family of having to uproot their lives for education purposes, was only the tip of the iceberg for the community they were leaving.

"You're taking families out of small towns, where the mum might be a local teacher and the dad a mechanic," he said.

He cited concerns of potential job applicants in Ravenswood, where they were deterred from applying because it was felt they'd have to leave once their child reached year 7.

"There's hesitation moving to an area that does not have education continuity," he said. "Towns of this size feel the blow of losing valued members of society far more than the larger cities."

The petition requests the House to undertake consultation and devise a solution that enables year 8-10 students living in rural and remote Queensland towns that have a state primary school to continue their formal education at the same facility by:

By Tuesday afternoon the petition had 856 signatures. It closes on May 7.