Called the ‘Coast to Country’ program, and facilitated by the University of the Sunshine Coast, the Queensland initiative is designed to show preservice teachers who’ve never lived in country areas that “there is a whole other world out there”.

Coordinator and UniSC Education lecturer Dr Tracey Sanderson says the program provides an invaluable experience for students with little first-hand knowledge of schools and communities outside their South East Queensland urban bases.

“I’ve been really surprised at how many students on the Sunshine Coast just really have no idea of what is beyond Noosa, let alone Gympie,” Sanderson tells EducationHQ.

“It’s very much that ‘well, we can get jobs down here, and we don’t know what that’s like, so why would we go out and work somewhere that we have no idea about?’”

The program, now in its 13th year, is very much about letting groups of students see what the potential is out there.

“Even if they don’t want to go out west, or don’t want to teach in the country, it’s just taking students out there, and letting them find out whether it’s somewhere for sure that they don’t want to be, so giving them the opportunity to actually see the environment – because it’s a very different way of life in regional areas.”

Providing an opportunity for these beginning teachers to go into a town, to see what community looks like and to see those connections that they don’t really get to appreciate in bigger urban areas is beneficial in countless ways.

“They see the support schools get, they see what’s available in the region, they see that there’s going to be long distances, that they’re going to have to manage different aspects of their life that they hadn’t really thought through before,” Sanderson explains.

“But then they also get to see that country kids are kids, like anywhere, and it’s just an experience that you haven’t had before. They also get to see that there are small schools in those areas, that are wonderful community options for education that, in terms of what they might have experienced on the coast, is a very different experience.”

Ultimate success for Coast to Country is to have participating students go on to complete pracs in these schools and ultimately return to those communities to teach once they graduate.

During their central Queensland trip, ITE students had an opportunity to explore the teacher housing in Capella, accompanied by (top right) Corey Kempthorne, principal of Capella SHS, and Melissa Nordling, an early career teacher at Capella SS, who is also a past Coast to Country participant.

“The idea being, we want committed and interested teachers in these areas to support the education of rural children,” Sanderson says.

Last week three groups of between 17 and 19 ITE students – on planes and buses – toured schools in far north, central and outback Queensland, including Charters Towers, Hughenden, Winton, Longreach, Emerald, Capella, Clermont, Springsure, Ravenshoe and Innisfail.

“It was fantastic, absolutely tiring, but fabulous,” Sanderson, who accompanied the Central Queensland group, says.

Her group were provided with great examples of how schools can be very different even within a rural context.

“They’re serving their communities very differently, in different ways and they have different connections,” she says.

“We had really mining-oriented towns, we had really agriculture/mining combinations, and so it was really good for them to see that there’s not one model just because you’re in a town or in a school...”

At Blackwater, the students spent the day in a classroom where they taught a small activity, while at Capella they got to see what government housing was like.

“A couple of young guys [in our group] who are married, were saying, ‘so hold on a minute, we come out here and live and work somewhere where we’ve got cheap rent  – I could rent out my house that I’ve just bought on the Sunshine Coast, and the mortgage will be paid for someone renting it…’ So they’re starting to see that option.

“Another couple saw there were a number of houses for sale and could possibly buy them as well. And I said ‘well, If that’s what you need, and decide this is the area you want to stay in, it’s an option’.”

One of the schools visited as part of the Coast to Country program last week was Denison State School, which has almost 400 kids and 22 teaching staff. 

Principal Hayden Ryan says unlike many schools, the Emerald community has remained ‘pretty well off’ throughout the national teacher shortage, due to a combination of factors.

“We have access to teacher housing which is always a helpful attraction and retention point for incoming staff,” Ryan says.

“As a community we are large enough not to be tied to a single industry, for example coal mining, which means that we aren’t as hit by changes in different markets that occur over time.

“It also allows for a range of other professions for teacher’s partners to work in which keeps them in the community longer.”

Ryan says the final factor is the holistic approach the local state schools take with his staffing team from regional office at workforce planning and projections into the future.

“We know we have a transient community and we allow for this when staffing in January to ensure we don’t run into a shortage come May when people are on the move,” he says.

Programs like the Country to Coast, the principal says, are a huge benefit for university students to be able to “try before they buy”.

“They see the communities, meet the people and know what it is that they are signing up for before moving to a new town,” he says.

University of Sunshine Coast ITE students get a taste of country life during the Colour Run at Denison SS, Emerald.

Sanderson says at a state government level, consideration needs to be given to supporting the rollout of more programs like Coast to Country.

“I think that the Department has to get in some respects that, it’s not like it was in days gone by, where it was, ‘Well, you’ve got a job, you go where you’re told, you do what you’re being offered. That’s it.’

“This is a different demographic.

“These are young people who know that they’ve got choices, they’ve got options, they want more from relationships, they want to be part of the conversation, not likely to be directed to have to do what they have to do – and I think education departments are at risk of not remembering that and not changing their focus.”In an ideal world, Sanderson would like to see all universities be part of a department-run program that perhaps divides out regions and says to each university, ‘right, we’re going to give you ‘X’ amount of dollars’.

“…because that’s the other thing – they’re not cheap to fund, the ones that we have are funded with philanthropic contributions, largely, and then with a couple of grants this year to top that up to make it doable.

“By the time you try and fly, you’re looking at airfares at $800 plus, it’s not a cheap exercise…

“They could divvy up their regions, and have the universities provide the students with somebody in each region to curate the trips.

“It’d be a fantastic opportunity for all rural/regional kids, and really, that’s the pointy end of the conversation – is quality education for these kids delivered by quality teachers who want to be there.”