QLD Schools - The Great Divide - State vs Private

I know this is going to cause some controversy however I feel strongly that this year the divide has become a great gaping hole in our education system where inequity has led to inequality - between schooling systems/schools and in some cases from school - to - school within the same system, and has negatively impacted both teachers and students.

Over the years I believe schools have breached this Great Divide between systems - realising that there is no ‘one size fits all’ model when it comes to schooling and each school has their own particular strength or ethos.

Image by Isaac LeFever

However, the move to Distance Learning as a result of COVID-19 identified some major limitations and inequities between State and Private schooling systems generally. This has created angst and frustration for teachers trying to provide the best learning experience for their students while having their hands tied.

Recreated from Tony Ruth’s depiction of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree

For example, QLD state schools generally were not given access to Microsoft Teams until the beginning of Term 3 - after Distance Learning had finished for most schools. Whereas some Private schools were able to prioritise training of their staff and students on Microsoft Teams prior to leaving school at the end of Term 1 in preparation for the start of Distance Learning. Teachers in some schools had limited resources where they were only able to use email to contact their students to provide a week’s worth of work at a time.

Now, I’m not talking about those schools who were already working with a remote community and had geographical/societal limitations as well. My favourite story being where for one school, teachers had to give school work to the local policeman to deliver to individual students (who had no computers or internet and limited ability to travel).

This is more about the unfairness to both staff and students in accessing reasonable technology solutions.

Provocative words not doubt!

The world as a whole is now using Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft OneNote, Google apps and other varying tools in their everyday business but are we going to go back to ‘business as usual’ in a predominantly face-to-face model or are we going to change the way we teach to meet the needs of both the students, parents and society expectations?

By providing equitable solutions for ALL schools we can grow a more equal and just system.