Developing and sustaining education programs that matter for remote communities

Abstract:

Much has been made about the sustainability of youth and other educational policy beyond the initial period of government program funding. Problems of sustainability are most at issue in country towns and districts which are "rural and remote", or distant from coastal cities and regional towns. In this paper we argue that problems of keeping policy and programs alive should be seen in the conditions in which they have to be conceived and set in place. Included here are: the social conditions in which a policy and ways to implement it are accepted as a 'common wisdom'; and, the match or mismatch they have with the economic and social conditions across urban and rural locations. Brief case studies, based on demographic information about three rural towns, are then used to document difficulties for policy implementation that matters for people in a rural and remote community. Much of the analysis is based on Sher and Sher's (1994) reference to making policy "as if rural people and communities really mattered". This is revisited to examine the different relations between the three rural transition programs and the towns they serve.