Distance no longer a tyranny
Vol 18. Number 01, January/February 2009
By Andie Gatti
Historian Geoffrey Blainey suggested in his book, The Tyranny of Distance, that distance shaped Australia's history.
Distance has certainly shaped the way education is delivered in Queensland, Australia's second-largest state.
Queensland is 1.7 million square kilometres - or twice as big as Texas, four times the size of Japan and seven times the size of the United Kingdom.
This vastness combined with a scattered population that lives far and wide and mainly outside Brisbane has created a challenge for the education department since the time Queensland became a colony in 1859.
Until 1875, most schools were established in the south-east corner of the state, closer to the main administrative centre and capital city.
The State Education Act of 1875, which mandated compulsory free primary education for children aged six to 12 and gave the State control of education, was the main catalyst for change.
In the following decades, the State Government introduced many innovative programs to ensure all young Queenslanders, no matter where they lived, received an education.
Travelling teachers
In 1901, the education department employed travelling, otherwise known as itinerant, teachers so that children in the most remote areas could receive basic schooling.
These teachers travelled through sparsely populated districts where there weren't enough children in the one place to form schools.
He - itinerant teachers were always male - was given a specially designed buggy with horses and camping equipment. A 'lad' of between 14 and 18 - who would do odd jobs such as open gates, look after the horses and set up camp - usually assisted him.
The teacher had to visit every district family with school-aged children up to four times a year, correcting work from the previous visit and leaving lessons for the next three months.
He also had to find his way through the bush in floods and drought, be able to fix his buggy if broken and nurse his horses if sick.
From 1912, despite constant breakdowns and the scarcity of petrol stations and spare parts retailers, cars and in some cases motorbikes with sidecars gradually replaced the horses and buggies.
In 1923, itinerant teachers covered 16 districts totalling 1.2 million square kilometres and visited 1445 families from one to five times a year.
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