Rural Access Gap
The focus of the Rural Access Gap (RAG) Direct Intervention Package is to overcome an inequity of access to digital technologies that support schools. This gap continues to impact the educational outcomes of students in rural, regional, and remote areas.
Read the transcript of the 'Rural Access Gap' video.
Creating a level playing field
The RAG is the first stage of the Schools Digital Strategy (SDS) that aims to ensure rural schools are digitally transformed to match their metropolitan counterparts.
Meet Director, School Agency and Digital Leadership, Dr Brad Russell who explains SDS's goal of achieving equity for every student, no matter what background or location.
"It's (about) giving the same access, same platform, same playing field for every student within our system," he said.
What the RAGiR delivers
The Rural Access Gap infrastructure Rollout (RAGiR) is a key component of the RAG program. Its aim is to close the gap in rural and remote areas by delivering the following:
- More than 14,000 teachers will have access to a laptop.
- More than 200,000 students will benefit from a higher availability of devices to reach a minimum device-to-student ratio of 1:4.
- More than 11,000 learning spaces will have access to a Main Learning Display (interactive display).
- 1,002 rural and remote schools will achieve network connectivity of 5 Mbps per student.
Delivering a better education
One of the core deliverables of the RAG Direct Intervention Package, which will target more than 1000 remote schools, is providing greater access to quality teaching.
The goal is to save time for teachers by streamlining processes, simplifying access to instructional resources, and professional support.
Together with enhanced connectivity delivered under the Connecting Country Schools program, these measures will help schools deliver rich and engaging educational experiences for all students.
By harnessing the best teaching capabilities across the system and bridging isolation using modern distance learning platforms, we can begin to close the gap.
The Rural Access Gap schools
The focus of the package is schools in rural, remote and regional areas of NSW. In total, it covers about 210,000 students in 1,002 schools comprising of:
763 primary schools
137 secondary schools
61 central/community schools
2 infants schools
25 Schools for Specific Purposes; and
14 Environmental Education Centres and other schools in distinct settings.
View a full list of Rural Access Gap schools (staff only).
School outcomes and impact
Rural and remote schools will all benefit from stronger, more responsive and reliable distance education platforms, supporting high-performance web-conferencing and collaboration tools.
Connecting students
Students will have modern, connected and constructive learning spaces equipped to support engaged, personalised learning.
Developing teachers
Teachers will have the development, support and resources they need to integrate digital tools within the learning environment.
Saving time
Support staff will benefit from school management tools that minimise manual tasks and maximise time to focus on teaching and learning.
Access to digital tools
School communities will have access to digital tools and connectivity for effective communication and collaboration.
More quality teaching
All staff will be able to partner with our country schools to help close the gap in access to high-quality teaching.
Professional support
All schools will be able to share teaching excellence with professional support in the classroom, the school and the region.
RAG delivery roadmap
Delivery of the RAG Direct Intervention Package begins with a proof-of-concept (POC) pilot in 29 schools in the Dubbo, Narrabri and Northern Border Region.
This will be extended to a further 81 schools by the end of June 2021 with the remainder delivered over the subsequent two years.
