UNE succeeds in national Summer Schools bid

September 13, 2007

The University of New England has won a multi-million-dollar contract to manage two of the Australian Government's new Summer Schools for Teachers.

The Minister for Education, Science and Training, Julie Bishop, announced today the results of a nation-wide tender process for management of the five Summer Schools. UNE's tender to manage both the Mathematics Summer School and the Science Summer School was successful. In addition, UNE will be involved in the management of the Literacy and Numeracy Summer School under the leadership of Wollongong University. The two other Summer Schools will be in English and Australian History.

The Government announced in May this year that it would provide funding of $101.7 million over four years for a "Summer Schools for Teachers" program. Initially, the program will provide opportunities for up to 1,000 of Australia's best teachers to enhance their knowledge and skills in one or other of the five subject areas at a fully-funded residential course in January 2008.

The National Centre of Science, ICT and Mathematics Education for Rural and Regional Australia (SiMERR), based at UNE, submitted the tender for the Mathematics Summer School and the Science Summer School. These will be held concurrently from the 7th to the 18th of January 2008 and will be designed to complement each other. The Mathematics Summer School will be at UNE, and the Science Summer School will be at Flinders University in Adelaide – UNE's partner in the proposal.

The Vice-Chancellor of UNE, Professor Alan Pettigrew, said the University was "very pleased to have been selected by the Government to manage a large part of this important program for teachers". "The Summer Schools will benefit from – and build on – UNE's nationally-recognised expertise in teacher education," he said.

UNE's Professor John Pegg, the Director of SiMERR, said he was expecting about 200 teachers to attend each of the Summer Schools.

"The mathematics teachers will be flown to Armidale and accommodated in UNE's residential colleges," Professor Pegg said. "Their presence will provide a significant boost to the Armidale economy."

He said the success of the tender, coordinated by Dr Terry Lyons, was "great confirmation of the work of the SiMERR National Centre over the past three years". "We're privileged to be able to play such an important role in the further development of capable maths and science teachers," he added.

Diane Hansford from UNE's School of Education is the local UNE project manager / academic manager for the Literacy and Numeracy Summer School to be held at Wollongong University (7-18 January) and Edith Cowan University (14-25 January). "UNE's partnership in the successful tender for the Literacy and Numeracy Summer School is testimony to the innovative research and teaching that have characterised the School of Education at UNE over many years," Ms Hansford said. The consortium to manage this Summer School also includes the Australian Literacy Educators' Association.

In its guidelines for the project, the Department of Education, Science and Training said that the selection of teachers (from both government and non-government schools) for the Summer Schools would be based on their "outstanding performance and potential to act as leaders of change within schools".

"This is an exciting new venture for UNE," Professor Pettigrew said, "and we will warmly welcome these outstanding teachers."

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here shows the Minister, Julie Bishop, with Professor Ian Hay, Head of UNE's School of Education, at today's launch of the Summer Schools at Parliament House, Canberra.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at September 13, 2007 05:21 PM