BushED adds its voice to call for national Blue Card scheme

Ms French spent 35 years as an administrative officer for the Volunteers for Isolated Students Education before it closed its doors in 2017 and has since set up a new charity, BushED, that focuses on tutoring for rural and remote families in a similar way.

She and BushED's administration officer Tracy Alder attended the 2021 federal ICPA conference in Longreach this week and she spoke strongly in support of the motion by the Western Australia state council for the national scheme, describing the current situation as a minefield.

As the motion's presenters explained, it is something that has been called for, for many years, to no avail.

"Currently, a person who wishes to obtain a WWCC for work purposes has their application checked nationally, the the process is administered at a state level," it said.

"When employees who already hold a WWCC in one state move interstate, they are expected to reapply for a WWCC in the new state they are applying for employment in.

"This process causes lengthy delays of up to eight weeks in employing staff, causing disruptions to families and students' educations."

In Ms French's experience, not only does each state have vastly different rules around applying, it had become harder to apply lately because of the shift to doing it online.

"A lot of our older people are not tech savvy, so they just chuck their hands up in the air and say it's just too hard," she said. "They're really desperate to help us though."

Tracy Alder said one of their prospective interstate male volunteers had tried four times to get a Blue Card.

"I've taken him through the process then they changed it, but he's still going.

"He'll get there. It just shows the passion that a lot of them have to want to do something like this, and face to face."

BushED, like VISE before it, matches volunteers, many of them grey nomads from southern states, with requests from families to give tutors, in most cases the mother, respite from teaching duties.

Thanks to COVID-19 restrictions between states, which Ms French said hadn't been their best friend, BushED has been operating this year via online Zoom tutoring to allow families to continue to access learning support.

As interstate restrictions ease, the hope is that in-home respite can resume for the 2022 school year.

"As more and more people learn about BushED, more and more will reach out," Ms French said. "The need is definitely still there, big time."

The group has also joined forces with a music company in Cairns to offer online music and singing lessons, and have recruited Outback Artist Sandy McLean to put together a package for online art lessons.

It's already bringing the Australian Virtual Astronaut challenge to rural and remote children in the first of its planned virtual learning opportunities, available via the BushED website.

"BushEd is proud and excited to be building partnerships with many organisations to bring state of the art educational links to our rural and remote kids," Ms French said.

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