Innovative Edmund Rice education initiative spreads

Flexible Learning Centres set to extend beyond Queensland

Anna Bligh (Premiere of Queensland),Tim Young (Principal), & Betty Kiernan (Member of State Parliament) at the opening of Mt Isa's Flexible Learning Centre

Mainstream schools just don’t work for some kids. In several parts of the world, the spirit of Edmund Rice is providing alternative pathways for such kids. Queensland’s innovative Flexible Learning Centres are a fine example of this. The latest one opened last month in Mount Isa with a great show of enthusiasm from government and non-government sectors and from the local community. Presently about 35 students attend this Edmund Rice Education facility every day, representing a significantly high 80% attendance rate. With enrolment increasing, the number may reach 100 by the start of 2011.

Six such Flexible Learning Centres across Queensland currently serve about 500 young people. The other facilities are at Noosa, Logan, Albert Park in Brisbane, Townsville, and the one in Deception Bay which opened in October 2009. Outreach programs enable the FLCs to extend their support to young people beyond these fixed locations.

Young people can become disenfranchised from mainstream education options for a variety of complex social, emotional, and educational reasons. FLCs strive to provide an education environment that is flexible, inclusive, caring, and responsive to the complex needs of the young people who attend. Each learning community is based on the ‘common ground’ principles of respect, participation, safety, law, and honesty (locally named ‘fair dinkum’). The environment is supportive of the cultural and social differences of the individual, and FLCs are committed to the uniqueness and dignity of each person. An atmosphere of acceptance enables the young people to regain control over their immediate to short-term future. The experience of FLCs is that the young people demonstrate great pride in the community that they create.

Prof. Alan Rix (Chair FLC Board) and Dale Murray (Director of EREA's Youth)

Though FLCs depend on partnerships and on the contribution of many individuals who buy into the joint effort, the undoubted pioneer figure is Dale Murray of Education Rice Education Australia (EREA). He has worked relentlessly to establish and grow the FLC network in Queensland, which is now poised to expand nationally in Australia. EREA’s Executive Director Dr Wayne Tinsey recently announced the launching of ‘Youth+’, a new national initiative targeting Australia’s disenfranchised youth. Youth+ names five ‘core areas of engagement’:

accredited flexible education services
research and advocacy
partnership
youth transitions
non-school initiatives.

As EREA’s National Co-ordinator of Youth, Dale Murray will now bring his experience, clear vision, and sense of mission, to the benefit of other parts of Australia. FLCs represent another flowering of the educational concerns of Edmund Rice and his Christian Brothers – a gift to the youth of Australia and an inspiration to other such efforts at inclusion around the world.