Rural Disadvantage and Post Compulsory Participation in Education and Training

Attitudes of rural parents toward postcompulstry education were examined ',1-irough in-depth structured interviews with 140 parents of students in 4 rural Tasmanian high schools. The students were all in Year 10, which is the last year of compulsory education in AusLralia. Most parents had lived in the same community for over 10 years. The proportion of parents who had gone beyond Year 10 varied among communities (approximately 10-40 percent) . When asked what they would like their child to be doing the following year, about half preferred secondary college (general education in Years 11 and 12), and 23 percent preferred employment. However, parents reported that a larger proportion of children wanted to go s:raight into employment. About 79 percent of parents thought that their child would benefi' from further education, an idealized preference at odds with intentions. An overwhelming perception was that education is a means to a job and to getting along in society. Parents who saw education solely as a means to employment tended to see further education as irrelevant, considering the lack of employment opportunities in rural communities. The results suggest that the discrepancy between what parents think would be good for their children and what they believe their children will be able to achieve educationally is a product of barriers that rural poverty and disadvantage place on educational participation. Contains 13 references.