Federal funds must go to Geraldton University, Woodhams
Author: Grant Woodhams
Published on: 13-March-2008
The Nationals education spokesman Grant Woodhams says the Federal Government must increase the amount of funds available to the Geraldton University Centre.
He says it is unacceptable that some students at the university were not getting face to face contact with staff.
“We have a situation where students enrolled in Early Childhood Education don’t have a tutor that they can talk to or meet with. The expectation of the students and the community is that courses will be delivered by staff on site, not online from Perth,” he said.
Mr Woodhams said he will be contacting the new Federal Minister for Education, Julia Gillard to insist that Geraldton University Centre be given adequate financial resources to develop its courses.
“This means Curtin, Edith Cowan and the University of Western Australia, to which the Federal Government provides money for the delivery of courses, have to take a more realistic attitude towards their commitment to Geraldton,” he said.
Mr Woodhams said he had also met with the State Education Minister Mark McGowan and explained the circumstances of the Geraldton University campus.
“Minister McGowan was sympathetic and described it as a Commonwealth responsibility. He expressed concern that all regional universities needed a greater slice of the Federal Government’s educational pie. I hope he will repeat those words to his Federal counterpart Julia Gillard,” he said.
Mr Woodhams said he was concerned that if students did not have face to face program delivery that they would vote with their feet and go to Perth for university studies.
“This would be an absolute disaster for the Mid West community that has fought hard to make university studies available. The Federal Government needs to recognise its responsibilities to provide Curtin, ECU and UWA universities with the funds to make this happen,” he said.
Mr Woodhams said that the Perth-based universities also needed to recognise their social and educational contract to Geraldton University Campus to provide face to face lecturing or tutoring.
“This is a basic responsibility and I ask the Perth universities not to play with the educational lives of university students in the Mid West."
