By Amanda Ferrari
Before I begin, I want to acknowledge that I write this from a position that is different to many of the families I support through The Boarding School Collective.
When my children approached high school, we lived within 25 kilometres of a local central school. We had access to a face-to-face secondary education option (though we had not had a school bus until their final year of primary school). Many rural and remote families across Australia do not.
Every year I work with families whose nearest secondary school is hundreds of kilometres away, whose children must board simply to access education, or whose choices are constrained by geography in ways many Australians never have to consider. This opinion piece is not about those families. Their challenges are different, and as a nation we must continue advocating for equitable access to education regardless of postcode.
However, in the national media interview that prompted this article, I was speaking on behalf of rural and remote families more broadly including our most remote families. The reflections that follow are personal. They relate to a different but equally important conversation: what happens when families do have a choice, and whether they feel free to exercise it without judgement.
Many years ago, after we had made the decision to send our children to boarding school, something happened that has stayed with me ever since.
The Principal of our local Central school stopped acknowledging me.
Not in any dramatic way. There was no confrontation. No difficult conversation. Just a noticeable shift. Someone who had previously spoken to me would walk past me in the street, at community events and around town without so much as a hello.
What struck me then, and still strikes me now, was that this person had never asked me why we had made the decision we did.
They never asked where we actually lived.
They never asked whether we had access to a school bus.
They never asked about the distance our children travelled, the opportunities we wanted them to have, or the connections we wanted them to maintain with extended family living elsewhere.
There was simply an assumption that by choosing boarding school, I had somehow chosen against the local school. Against their leadership. Against public education.
That I had rejected my community, which I hadn’t. What my husband and I were doing was parenting and these were super tough decisions.
And over the past few decades, I have discovered that countless rural families carry the same burden. Not the burden of making the decision itself, although that can be incredibly difficult.
The burden of feeling they have to defend it.
Following a recent national media interview about educational opportunity in regional, rural and remote Australia, I found myself reflecting on that experience once again. Some of the responses suggested that advocating for boarding school somehow diminishes local schools, local teachers or local communities.
That wasn’t what I said. And it certainly wasn’t what I meant.
The truth is, I have enormous respect for the educators who choose to teach in rural and remote Australia. Throughout my life out here I have watched teachers, principals and support staff do extraordinary things for children, often with fewer resources, fewer staff and greater challenges than many of their metropolitan counterparts.
The challenge has never been the people.
The challenge is the inequity.
The Federal Government’s Independent Review into Regional, Rural and Remote Education identified the key challenge as ensuring that, regardless of location or circumstances, every young Australian has access to a high-quality education and opportunities.
That is the conversation we should be having.
Because the reality is that educational opportunities are not distributed equally across Australia.
Some families have access to multiple secondary schools within a short drive. They can choose between public, independent, selective, specialist or faith-based schools. They can access broad subject offerings, extensive sporting programs, performing arts opportunities and diverse post-school pathways.
Other families have one option.
And sometimes that option is a wonderful fit.
Sometimes it isn’t.
Neither of those realities should be controversial to acknowledge.
The evidence is certainly not controversial. Decades of research have shown that students in regional, rural and remote Australia are less likely to complete Year 12, have lower levels of access to specialist subjects, and often attend schools where attracting and retaining teachers remains a significant challenge. The same research highlights lower levels of school attendance, lower levels of belonging among secondary students and fewer curriculum options.
None of that is a criticism of teachers. It is simply the reality many educators themselves would acknowledge. What surprises me is that whenever these conversations arise, we seem determined to turn them into a debate about loyalty.
As though choosing a different educational pathway somehow reflects a lack of faith in your community.
As though wanting broader opportunities for your child is a criticism of the people working hard within the local school.
As though parents should feel guilty for making a choice they believe is right for their family.
I don’t think we ask metropolitan families to carry that burden.
Nobody questions a Sydney family for choosing an independent school over their local public school. Nobody accuses them of undermining the local education system. Nobody expects them to sacrifice what they believe is the best fit for their child in order to preserve enrolment numbers elsewhere.
Yet rural families are often asked to carry exactly that weight.
The argument that families leaving contributes to a loss of critical mass within small communities is not new. In fact, it has existed for generations. Generations and generations.
But families have always exercised choice where choice exists.
Across regional Australia, government-funded buses arrive in small towns every morning and transport students to larger regional centres. Families routinely drive significant distances for schooling, sport and services. Major supermarket chains load groceries onto trucks and deliver them directly to homes across rural Australia because families choose the products, prices or convenience that suit them best.
Do we criticise those choices? Perhaps we do…but can we move towards understanding them?
Can we recognise that families can make decisions based on what they believe best meets their needs?
The reality is that if families believe a different environment, different opportunities or a different pathway better suits their child, many will choose it.
Some will board. Some will travel. Some will relocate entirely.
And this is where I think we need to be honest with ourselves.
If we make it difficult for families to choose, if we make them feel judged for choosing, if we force them to justify every decision, we don’t necessarily keep them in our communities.
Often we lose them altogether.
I know because I nearly became one of them.
When my children approached high school, I seriously considered leaving. Not because I didn’t love where I lived. Not because I didn’t value my community. Quite the opposite.
I loved our life. But I was a mother trying to reconcile what I wanted for my children with the options available to us.
Had boarding school not been available, I would certainly have left.
Would that have been a better outcome for my community?
Would losing an entire family have strengthened the local school?
Would it have added to the social and economic fabric of our town?
I don’t believe so.
And I hear similar stories every year from families across Australia.
Families who desperately want to remain living and working in the communities they love, but who are searching for educational pathways that best fit their child’s needs, aspirations and circumstances.
This is not about public schools versus boarding schools.
It never has been.
It is about recognising that children are different. Families are different. Communities are different.
And educational pathways should be different too. Every family deserves the right to make that decision without judgement. Every child deserves access to opportunity, regardless of postcode.
And every rural parent should feel able to explore all available options without fearing they will be viewed as disloyal to the very communities they are trying so hard to remain part of.
Because at its heart, this isn’t a debate about boarding school.
It’s a conversation about choice.
And whether rural families are truly free to exercise it.
