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Media Release
INCREASED ASSISTANCE FOR ISOLATED CHILDREN
11 May 1999
Rural and remote Australian families sending their children to boarding school are to receive additional assistance, the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Dr David Kemp announced today. "In recognition of the difficulties rural and remote Australians experience in ensuring a quality education for their children, the Government is increasing funding under the Assistance for Isolated Children Scheme. This will take total funding for the AIC Scheme to $139 million over the next four years," said Dr Kemp. "In line with our election commitment, the Basic Boarding Allowance component of the Assistance for Isolated Children or AIC Scheme will increase from $2,900 to $3,500 and will be adjusted for future inflation. "Further, the maximum level of funding available under both the Basic and Additional Boarding Allowance will be increased to $4,377 for both primary and secondary students. "Both these increases took effect from 1 January 1999 and will provide an additional $3.9 million to rural families in 1999-2000." The AIC scheme helps those families living in rural and remote areas whose school age children do not have reasonable daily access to an appropriate government school. The scheme provides funding to offset the cost to the families associated with boarding arrangements for their children and to ensure that they have access to schooling on the same basis as their urban counterparts. Funding is also provided under AIC to allow students to study via distance education or for a family to maintain a second home to enable students in that family to attend school. Dr Kemp said the increase in the boarding allowance rates for 1999 reflects the Government’s concern to ensure that rural and isolated students have equitable access to quality education. This increased assistance is in addition to short term emergency funding totalling $253,000 which was provided late last year to assist school term hostels in significant financial difficulty. "This honoured an election commitment made by the Government and ensured that these hostels would be able to open their doors in 1999 for children living in rural and remote areas," said Dr Kemp. School term hostels help the parents of students whose homes are so geographically isolated from primary and secondary schools as to make daily travel between the two impractical, or in some cases impossible. By providing accommodation in towns and regional centres, school term hostels enable these students to participate in learning, social and sporting activities which would otherwise not be available to them. "In line with our election commitment, we took this issue to the State and Territory ministers at the recent Ministerial Council on Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) and a working group has been established to suggest possible strategies for working towards a long term solution for the sector," said Dr Kemp. Media contact: Samantha Herron 0412 639 754 or 02 6277 7460
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