Without my daughter...

Life in the outback presents many challenges; you can't get bread on a Tuesday, a broken school shoe isn't replaced easily, you can't hide on a bad-hair day since it's impossible to be anonymous. But one of the biggest challenges facing families up here is the question of education. For such a small town, there is a pretty high percentage of home-schoolers for example. Many people here are unhappy with the local primary school; the teaching population can be transient, teachers come and go, and I've heard of one principal who simply up and left one day with no prior warning. And so, it's a bit of a lottery whether you're going to get a decent teacher for your child, since finding good teachers who are willing to come up and live here is not an easy task. High-school presents an equal if not bigger challenge. The 'local' high-school is 80 kms away and has an equally transient teaching population, resulting in many families choosing to send their ...