Australian families and teachers are encouraged to wear red on Wednesday 9 October to raise awareness for rural and remote education.
The Isolated Children’s Parents’ Association (ICPA) is proud to announce the launch of the inaugural Rural and Remote Education Day (RREd Day) – a dedicated awareness day that will shine a spotlight on the unique challenges students and families in rural and remote areas of Australia face every day.
RREd Day offers an opportunity for the entire nation to come together to acknowledge the significant barriers to education that rural students face, and to advocate for better support and resources that help ensure equitable access to education for all Australian children, regardless of where they live.
The theme for this inaugural event is Wear Red for Rural and Remote Education and encourages all ICPA members, schools and supporters all over Australia to wear red as a symbol of the urgency and passion behind the cause. Participants are invited to share their photos and stories on social media using the hashtag #WearRREd to help amplify the message.
ICPA Federal President Louise Martin is eager to see many Aussie families participating in this year’s celebrations – “if not for you and your family, but for those living remotely who desperately need education reform”.
“Rural and remote students face extraordinary challenges every day, from connectivity issues to limited access to educational resources. RREd Day is about bringing these issues to the forefront of national conversation, ensuring that rural and remote education is not just an afterthought but a priority,” she says.
“By wearing red, sharing stories, and joining forces, we can each work to drive the positive change that our rural, remote and isolated children so desperately need.”
Long-standing issues need urgent solutions
“We’re having absolutely no luck at having a lot of our long-standing issues fixed by governments,” Martin told EducationDaily about the motivation behind the launch of RREd Day.
“We’d love to get the rest of the Australian community behind us.”
Martin says the majority of the people who live in rural and remote areas are either directly involved in primary production or support those who are.
“We need to maintain vibrant, educated communities in rural and remote Australia so we can continue to be productive, providing food and fibre for our population and the rest of the world.”
Skills shortages hurt rural communities
But if the government doesn’t understand that need, Martin says, “we need the people of Australia to get behind us and push governments to take action to support the needs of families trying to access quality education for their children”.
“Just be a groundswell of support – wear red for rural ed! People in rural and remote areas across the country are suffering – there’s such a shortage of early years teachers, for one thing, and that has a flow-on impact of disadvantaging rural and remote areas by not being able to attract professionals to come to those communities.
“If you are a police officer, or a teacher, or a doctor, and you want to come to a rural or remote community to work but there’s no day care or kindy or primary school for your own children to be educated, then you’re going to make a choice to go and live somewhere else and that community will be impacted by that skill shortage.”
For the people who are born and raised in rural and remote communities and may already work in important roles within the region, Martin says a lack of access to early years education means people leave to take up jobs in bigger towns or cities once they plan their own families.
School-age children already living in rural and remote areas are often also forced to leave their homes and community networks – especially if connectivity issues inhibit their ability to access the reliable internet needed to succeed in an online study pathway.
“It’s not just for uni. There are so few secondary schools in rural and remote areas,” Martin told EducationDaily.
“When educated people leave rural and remote communities to educate their kids, those communities suffer.”
Martin says that, to help families with young children stay connected to their local communities, travel allowances and support funding should be increased to help families who cannot afford to send their children away to boarding schools in larger regional centres
Overcoming barriers to education and opportunity
Then there’s the alarming non-completion rate of apprenticeships for young people in rural and remote communities.
“How can a kid on bugger all money feed and clothe themselves while they are trying to complete vocational education and training pathways? They can’t. Even if they have got an apprenticeship with a local business in their own community, they still have to fulfil the education side of the training – and they’re not supported. There’s very little pastoral care either.
“They might only be sixteen or seventeen, they’ve had to move to a town, they’ve never lived on their own before, and they’re away from their family and friends, just so they can further their education and get an apprenticeship. Who’s supporting them financially or emotionally? It just becomes unsustainable, so they give up.
“When you finish high school, you fall off a financial cliff.”
When it comes to her own university-age daughter, Martin says it took nearly the entire year to get confirmation that her family could access the Tertiary Access Payment (TAP) her daughter was entitled to as a uni student from a rural or remote community.
“That’s because dealing with Centrelink is an absolute nightmare. And if that child didn’t have a parent who is proactive and involved in the space and who knows who to ring to get things moving, she would probably still be floundering and would have given up. So, what hope does someone else have? When you live in a geographically isolated area, your choices are really limited.”
Martin told EducationDaily the choice of red for the launch of the awareness day was made “because we think it’s meaningful to Australia”, adding that she believes it connects people to the evocative imagery of the isolated red centre at the heart of the country.
“But you don’t have to be that geographically isolated to experience the issues that so many families in rural and remote areas face – and that’s why we want all Australians to take up this day and make it part of the annual calendar of awareness days.”
Real prizes up for grabs
To help create positive change, participants who wear red and share their photos with the hashtag #WearRRed will have the chance to win cash or a connectivity tool, with the winner announced on ICPA’s social media channels and website.
The campaign has received support from NBN and Telstra, with NBN giving away $1000 cash to the most inspiring entry and Telstra offering a Cel-fi GO 3G/4G Mobile Booster (RRP $999) to the most inspiring entry as prizes for participants who engage with the campaign by sharing their RREd Day experiences online.
How to enter?
“Taking part is easy, just post to socials #WearRREd and share to your networks,” says Martin.
“Wearing red on RRED Day is more than just a statement – it symbolises the vast heart of our country, the red land that sustains us, and the families who live and learn in the most remote corners of Australia. For the past 53 years, ICPA has been advocating for education access. We will continue to ignite engaging conversations on this topic, and we look forward to uniting our participants under a common cause through a simple yet powerful visual gesture.”
