Lessons for the Future

Abstract

Students in the second year of their pre-service teacher education program were offered an incentive to undertake practice teaching in remote rural schools in the North-West Riverina CAP cluster. CAP provided travel and accommodation expenses. Approximately one quarter of the cohort volunteered for the practice teaching experience. After the three week practicum, students (N=23) were asked to reflect on their rural teaching and living experiences and to consider such issues as the practicum arrangement, the professional development benefits, the experience of rural living, and the value of the CAP incentives to travel and teach in the remote rural communities. All students expressed a preparedness to accept a teaching appointment in remote areas, thus supporting the efficacy of incorporating a period of teaching practice in areas which have been generally difficult to staff.

The Perennials and Trends of Rural Education

“…Against educational research and policy discourses that point out to an apparent lack of aspirations by rural and remote students, families and schools, evidence from the Journal suggests that aspirations of rural and remote students differ little from their urban counterparts (Ellis, 2006;Vernon et al, 2018). While much of the Journal's literature is focused on determining factors that promote aspiration (Drummond et al, 2012;Hemmings & Boylan, 1992;Smith et al, 2017;Stone et al, 2022) , there is also evidence to show that aspirations are grounded in or determined by place (Bangarr, 2022;Smith et al, 2017), and that those aspirations are no better or worse than aspirations of non-rural/remote students.…”

“…Many of the articles explore specific interventions designed to support and attract pre-service teachers to rural and remote communities. These include the Country Areas Program in New South Wales (Hemmings & Boylan, 1992), the Priority Country Area Program in Queensland (Yarrow et al, 1998), university-based internship and mentoring programs (Drummond et al, 2012;Yarrow et al, 1999), community immersion programs and taster field trips (Lavery et al, 2018;Sharplin, 2010), and beginning teacher support programs (Baills et al, 2002). Practicum experience and internship programs are also discussed (King, 1994), sometimes from the perspective of pre-service teachers (Davidson, 2011;Penfold, 2000).…”