Esperance Community College Library and Learning Centre officially opens

27/4/00

Five years of community planning and hard work has culminated in the official opening of the Esperance Community College.
Opening the new $2.8 million joint-use library and learning centre in Esperance today, Education Minister Colin Barnett said it was a unique and compelling model of what could be achieved through teamwork in regional areas.

Mr Barnett said the integration of upper secondary school, vocational education and training and university studies at the college was being achieved by creating paths through and between courses in all sectors.
The college was developing a range of paths from school to training, higher education and the workforce.

"Until now Years 11 and 12, vocational education and training and higher education were compartmentalised,"
Mr Barnett said.
"Though the services were adjacent, there were no arrangements for sharing resources, joint planning or co-ordinating responses to student and community needs.
"A recent national study found only 19 per cent of rural students participated in some form of higher education after high school compared to 30 per cent for Australians generally.
"I believe a facility like the Esperance Community College could help redress this because it integrates secondary education with higher education.
"Hopefully this integrated learning encourages students to go on to higher education - either TAFE or university - because they have had close experience with it during their secondary years.
"The college is also an integrated precinct for Esperance giving the public access to books, multi-media materials and the Internet at the library and flexible learning centre.
"It opens up the whole array of telecommunications for personal or professional development, business transactions and recreation."
Mr Barnett said the heart of the college had always been the people of Esperance and this would remain the case through the college's governing council which was chaired by the Reverend Doug Murray.
He said the Esperance community was represented on the governing body along with representatives from the Esperance Senior High School, Curtin University and the residential college.
While in Esperance today Mr Barnett also launched - with Employment and Training Minister Mike Board - a new State Government scheme designed to provide more effective, equitable, quality education and training solutions for remote and rural Western Australia.
Mr Barnett said 'Country Roads', the new State Plan for Rural and Remote Education and Training, was the result of a three-year State-wide consultation process with Government and independent education and training organisations, students, parents, community members and teachers.
He said despite the increase in computers and techology in schools the Government was concerned at statistics which showed country students were lagging behind their counterparts in metropolitan Perth and some regional centres.
The Departments of Education, Education Services and Training and Employment would all monitor the plan's effectiveness.

The plan specified seven priority areas for achieving better education and training outcomes in the regions.
These included ensuring:
• students living in rural and remote areas could participate in quality education and training to achieve their potential;
• a broad, cross-sector partnership approach to providing education and training in rural and remote Western Australia;
• rural and remote communities could access and retain quality education and training professionals;
• meeting the educational needs of students at risk in rural and remote areas;
• cultural diversity, including Aboriginal cultural perspectives, was recognised and supported by rural and remote education and training programs;
• continual enhancement of the value placed on rural and remote education and training by the WA community; and -
• all rural and remote education and training services were appropriately resourced.

Mr Board said it was significant the Departments of Education, Education Services and Training and Employment had developed this new plan jointly.
He said this reflected the growing emphasis on co-operation in Government today.
"In former times, the education system, the vocational education and training system and the university system operated within their own boundaries," Mr Board said .
"But today there is vocational education and training in schools and partnerships have been formed between TAFE colleges and universities.
"Increasingly, all of these sectors are working together in new, flexible and innovative ways."
"'Country Roads is designed to benefit the one-third of WA's population living outside the Perth metropolitan area."
The implementation of Country Roads, which is guided by a strategic-plan working party representing a wide range of experts from WA education and training sectors, will be staged over three years from 2000 to 2003.
Working party members:
Dr Murray Lake Chair
Mr John Borserio Catholic Education Office
Ms Glenda Bye Department of Training and Employment
Ms Karen Caple Association of Independent Schools of WA
Mr Scott Hollingworth Education Department of WA
Ms Linley Kemeny Education Department of WA
Ms Carina Kopke Isolated Children's Parents' Association
Mr Brian Lindberg State School Teachers' Union of WA
Ms Shelley Norrish WA Council of State School Organisations Inc
Mrs May O'Brien Aboriginal Education and Training Council
Mrs Margaret Williams University of Western Australia.

Media contacts: Diana Callander 9222 9699
Tamatha Smith 9222 9211