EDUCATING OUTBACK CHILDREN

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 53, 4 March 1922, Page 9

EDUCATING OUTBACK CHILDREN

, CORRESPONDENCE SYSTEM IN NEW SOUTH.WALES,

(PROM OUR OWN COMIISPOIIPINT.)

SYDNEY, 15th February. , Through the introduction" by the Education Department of New South Wales of the system of education by correspondence, over 1000- children in the State are getting the benefit of an education which otherwise ' would be impossible. The course is designed to meet the needs of those children who are so remotely situated that they cannot attend existing schools, nor can theif parents afford to maintain a subsidised, halltirae or travelling school. During the past two years the number of teachers by correspondence has increased from six to twenty-three, and" the number of children taught by this means from 212 to 1003. The staff of teachers for correspondence school -work are selected very carefully, and beyond the formal les-. gons thefe develops between the teacher and the pupil a personal relationship which lifts the correspondence out of the formal into the.friendly category. At the last qualifying certificate examination there was 1 a striking instate of the success of this method of tuition. No fewer than twenty children sat for the examination, and sixteen passed. Some of'these had never been inside a schoolhouse in their lives before. Tl»y attended at a schoolhouse in their district to sit, for the examination, whilst most of the remainder had only had a few weeks, or, at most, months' experience of a public school associated with other children. From letters received at the Department it may be seen how much the system is appreciated by the parents. The mother of one boy not -12£ years old at the time of the examination wrote that he had to travel thirty-three miles to the locality where the examination was held. ■" He was so nervous," she said, "as we approached the school that I think facing a yard of wild cattle would have been easier to him. The headmaster soon put him at his ease. He did splendid work, and I can never thank the teachers ■ enough for the interest they took in him. They have laid a sure and ; firm, foundation for his future welfare."

Another case was that in. which two girls left their home for Walgett, twenty-seven miles away, at sunrise on the day preceding tho examination, but had to turn back on account of bush fires. They left again next morning. In the majority of instances those children who had before been inside^ schools before the education by correspondence system reached them , had done so only visiting relations or friends in town or localities where schools existed. Most of those visits only extended over a few weeks.