Content
USC's commitment to regional engagement
5 May 2007
For a university committed to regional engagement, one of the specific areas where we make a very significant contribution is in our relationship with schools. It is also another one of those areas where it is perhaps difficult to see the forest for the trees. There is an enormous amount of productive activity going on, but general community awareness is probably low, outside the particular schools, students and parents involved.
Headstart is a relatively well known school-based flagship program for USC. The recent Australian Universities Quality Agency audit confirmed that this is a program of which USC and the community can be very proud. It provides Year 11 and 12 students with an immersion opportunity, to experience what it’s like to take lectures, tutorials, access library, student support services etc while having a dedicated university back-up team to support their foray into higher education. We know that more than 50 percent of our students are the first in their family to attend university and Headstart provides such students with confirmation that they can cope with university level study. This is something that is repeatedly conveyed to us by students and parents.
But our engagement with schools is far more extensive than just Headstart. All faculties have special associations with local schools. Here we can nominate relationships such as the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Social Sciences Forum, or the Faculty of Business, Business Learning Day. However, the level of engagement within the Faculty of Science, Health and Education is more extensive, and this could be expected with our decision, in 2005, that the introduction of teacher education programs would have a special emphasis on science and maths, given shortages of suitably qualified teachers not just on the Sunshine Coast but Australia wide.
The University is a partner in the recently established, Science Centre of Innovation and Professional Practice, one of only six such centres established in the state by the Queensland Government. There’s an array programs for: Active After School Communities, Sport Science Testing, the Integrated Curriculum Project, Innovate Now, Biotechnology Classroom, and Queensland Environmentally Sustainable Schools. And in a first, to base USC staff in a local school, Head of the School of Science and Education, David McKay is currently the inaugural Honorary Teaching Fellow in Maths and Science at Chancellor College.
And this is not a static system. We have recently joined a consortium, established by the University of Tasmania, to promote science education in schools with a focus on careers in primary industries. This is of major significance to the Sunshine Coast with a rural hinterland that adds so much to its character.
As the University grows, it is developing the capacity for more extensive outreach. An example of this is the creative writing for middle students project, rolled out this year as a partnership between the University and the school community of Gympie. Based around the Government funded Information Technology Hub on the James Nash High School campus and sponsored by the James Nash Principal, Darrin Edwards and coordinator Emma Palm.
It has provided a platform for USC staff such as Jill Maguire and internationally renowned author Gary Crew, to provide a window on the world of post-secondary education and enhanced aspirations to a wonderfully motivated class of students from the Gympie area.
It’s initiatives such as these that that will help our university cement its role as a major driver of change and progress in the region and there isn’t a more important place to do this than in our school classrooms.
Professor Paul Thomas AM is Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Sunshine Coast.