Happy Anniversary (School of the Air)

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On our amazing adventure, we first met a family in Tasmania, who were educating their children over “School of the air”

This was a new concept to us, which we found fascinating.

As we went further around Australia, we met several families who were doing the same thing.

Today we hear that the school of the air is 60 years old today, it started in Alice Springs in 1951, to provide schooling for children in remote locations, and at this point in time still provides this facility to over 600 students.

When you consider just how big this country is, you can understand the necessity of this service.

I plucked this of Wikipedia and read through it, we have seen one of the old pedal powered radio sets when we were at the RFDS (Royal Flying Doctor Service) which seemed so rudimentary, but so integral to the system.

History of remote schooling

A student of Katherine School of the Air in the early 1960s. Image courtesy of Katherine School of the Air4.
The Reverend John Flynn5 had established the Royal Flying Doctor Service6 after recognising that there was an urgent need for medical and health care to people living in remote communities. In response to this need the RFDS, under the guidance of Flynn, had established a radio network across the vast centre of the country. This network was powered by another great Australian innovation – Alfred Traeger's pedal-powered radio.

In 1946, Miss Adelaide Miethke8 was the vice-president of the South Australian wing of the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) and a former inspector of girl's schools. The idea for the School of the Air was born when she noticed how outback children were all taught to use the RFDS radio service. She saw that there were other ways this network could be used.

Until the 1950s, children living in remote communities would either have to attend a boarding school, or complete their lessons by mail. This meant that students were either separated from their families or they had no interaction with their teacher and other students. Due to the delays in mail delivery, it also meant that many of these students would fall behind in their lessons. Something had to be done, but what?

In 1948, the Alice Springs RFDS base, was used to broadcast the first school lessons to outback children. Just a few years later, the School of the Air (SOA) was officially established. In 1956, the SOA program spread to New South Wales with other states and territories following soon after. In the late 1960s, the SOA gained international fame when featured on the popular Australian television program Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
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In 2005, there were more than sixteen schools of the air located around Australia, a network covering more than 1.5 million square kilometres. In fact, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory are the only states who do not have a SOA. As well as teaching children who live in geographically isolated areas, these schools also teach children who are travelling around Australia or who can't, for medical or other reasons, attend a regular school.

The SOA program has now extended to teach secondary students and adult education courses, meaning that all members of a family can now complete studies, no matter where they are living. The Australian SOA has also helped many other countries with similar problems to establish their own SOA.

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