On Tuesday we visited our second Victorian school, this time in a rural district heading towards the South Australian border. This area lies in a lush, dairy farming area, and consequently, hard hit by the general difficulties facing that sector. The image above shows one of the Avenues of Remembrance that grace a number of small towns in this scenic area.
The school was one of Deakin’s Engagement and Access Program partner schools (DEAP). The aim of the DEAP program is to work with schools to build on students’ aspirations to generate awareness of the potential of a tertiary education for young people who might not previously have considered this. Place matters on many fronts, not least the distribution of school’s equity funding. While in other locations, closer to large regional or metropolitan centres, we’ve heard students recount their pleasure in visiting bricks and mortar bookstores, many young people in more remote areas might find that they are more likely to encounter paper books in large ‘marts’, as part of the family’s weekly shopping visit.