Because none of the traditional programs that have been introduced to provide trade and skills training in remote Aboriginal communities has produced qualified tradespersons, a project was undertaken to develop and pilot test an apprenticeship training system called the Modular Integrated Training System (MITS). Visits to remote Aboriginal…

Summarizes outcomes of the 1994 international conference, "Issues Affecting Rural Communities," held in Townsville, Australia. The aim of the conference was to identify major issues in health, education, and community development, and to explore possibilities of applying international and interdisciplinary perspectives to the remediation…

This report describes the activities of the Rural Education Research and Development Centre at James Cook University (Queensland, Australia). The center is responsible for implementing research into rural education, training teachers to work in rural areas, and implementing projects related to rural education. The center is an academic unit…

The itinerant secondary remedial resource teacher service, designed to identify and help isolated country students in Queensland who are experiencing learning difficulties and to assist teachers in classrooms, program development, and resource strategy for exceptional learners, was evaluated seven months after project initiation in 1979. Data for…

This newsletter issue focuses on programming undertaken to address the health and educational needs of rural families in developing and developed nations. After examining the nature of rural families and rural poverty, the newsletter discusses: (1) the Mon Women's Organization in Thailand; (2) The "Contact With Kids" parent education…

Cooperation, sharing, and competence are the key ideas in the Victorian Country Education Project, a pilot project to be conducted in a limited number of rural areas in Australia in an effort to overcome problems peculiar to rural schools and communities and to search for new ways to provide those schools and communities with improved educational…

The Victorian Country Education Project (CEP), a pilot project searching for new ways of bringing beneficial educational experiences to disadvantaged rural areas, successfully achieved its aims of establishing community-based programs involving varied groups and people in developing solutions to local educational problems. A central Planning…

This paper reports on the Contact Children's Mobile, a program developed in 1987 to provide educational and social enrichment opportunities for children from birth to 12 years who live in a large remote region surrounding Wanaaring, Australia. Two teachers travel an average of 800 kilometers weekly to make home visits or hold daylong educational…

The book describes the setting, objectives, program, evaluation and achievement of six innovative action-research early childhood education projects for Aboriginal Australian children, traces various previous attempts to provide education, and provides an historical background of the estimated 140,000 Aboriginal people who make up 1% of…

Telecottages originated in Scandinavia in the 1980s in an attempt to reverse the decline of isolated communities by giving them access to information and services, facilities for training and distance education, and the opportunity to produce income through telecommuting. In 1992-1993, the Australian government began funding the Telecentre…

A study examined flexible delivery modes that could be used to provide adult literacy and basic education (ALBE) to students in rural areas of Victoria, Australia. Telephone interviews were conducted with 29 students and 20 tutors and administrators involved in community-based programs, the 3CCC Airwaves Learning radio program, and off-campus…

Pilot projects designed to increase the access of young unemployed Australians to adult and community education (ACE) were undertaken in one rural and one metropolitan adult, community and further education region with significant rates of unemployment among individuals aged 15-24 years. Two consortia were selected to conduct the pilot programs,…

Case studies of local development projects in Scotland, Norway, Australia, and the United States (Minnesota) indicate that federal education programs of a "generative" nature (those linking educational improvement to other improvement efforts, emphasizing process, and stimulating grass-roots participation) are most likely to promote…

Data for evaluation of the Mobile Remedial Unit, instituted to assist approximately 250 isolated Queensland children with learning difficulties during 1978 and 1979, were obtained by visits to 10 schools; discussions with principals, teachers, administrators, and the 2 mobile remedial teachers; document analysis; and travel with a remedial teacher…

The state of vocational education and training (VET) in Australia in 1997 was evaluated by collecting data on the following key performance measures: participation and achievement in VET; employer views on VET; student outcomes from VET; VET's benefits for particular client groups (females, people from rural and remote areas, indigenous…