![Tammie Irons, daydream believer. Tammie Irons, daydream believer.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/88uitQDCBZnXA8enwGJ5Zd/5d57c2d4-5de1-4fb7-bfec-191fda7e7604.jpg/r0_0_5616_3744_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
In my past life as a state councillor with the Isolated Children's Parents' Association of Queensland, I came to learn that the majority of the decision-making power in our state sits in a comfortable office space within the Brisbane CBD.
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While I met some genuinely caring people within these decision-making roles, who would have loved to have provided our rural and remote children with everything that we requested, it was also true that the vast majority of them had never lived in a rural community, had never taught in a small school and were never going to fully understand the implications of the decisions they were making on our behalf.
This is certainly an issue that occurs on a daily basis in all our schools, and perhaps one of the reasons why teachers are leaving the profession in droves.
Decisions that impact on the day-to-day classroom teaching of these professionals are being made by those who are writing a curriculum from afar, who have not been a full- time teacher for many years and as such, have little experience in trying to implement everything that is being asked of them in the hours they spend with students.
This decision-making power goes beyond the realms of education and permeates every government department.
We have state government leaders and their advisers making decisions about our rural and remote roads who have never driven the gravel, pot-holed and uneven stretches which scatter outback Queensland; those who decide what our rural hospitals and medical services can manage without although they've never set foot in one; and those who make decisions which have huge impacts on our rural communities and their sustainability, even though they've never lived there.
Plato said that "a good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers." While I believe there has to be a balance between the two in order to effectively run a department, I also believe there is certainly room for improving the knowledge base of those people who are the decision-makers for our future in rural and remote areas.
Communities are struggling, families are battling and those who are in charge have to be invested in the future of these places.
It is past time for those making the decisions to make the effort to spend time in the communities their decisions are directly impacting and ensure their decisions are fully informed.
- Tammie Irons, daydream believer