Suspension of school camps could cost millions
QLD Outdoor educators shocked
Posted on 04.02.2022
Tanya Hall thought the worst of COVID-19 lockdowns were behind Camp Cooby, an outdoor education facility north of Toowoomba, until she saw one dot point in Education Queensland’s back-to-school plan.
“Suspension of school camps, excursions …” from February 7 to March 4, it read.
“I felt shocked, hopeless and worried for our industry,” Ms Hall said.
“We’re still trying to recover from last year because we had a full shutdown for months and months.
“It’s not insignificant at all.
“We had schools booked from Brisbane, and our local district area. So it is a lot of lost income, in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for us.”
Ms Hall said the government decision to suspend school camps and outdoor excursions was “reactive”.
“They had to make the decision quickly – so it’s easier to just cancel it rather than collaborate [with the outdoor industry],” she said.
“With an open border, we could have New South Wales schools come over and have a camp, but we can’t have Queensland schools. It doesn’t make sense.”
Students to miss ‘critical’ experiences
At Emu Gully Adventure in the Lockyer Valley, the cancelled school camps could add up to a seven-figure loss.
The company’s chief executive Darren Copland said the announcement caught outdoor education operators by surprise.
“The information the industry was given just a couple of weeks ago was the direct opposite,” he said.
Mr Copland said more than 50 school bookings had been impacted at Emu Gully alone.
“Everyone wants a camp in term one,” Mr Copland said.
“We’ve lost a considerable amount for the first part of the year to pay our 32 staff. Somewhere between $750,000 and a million dollars in expected revenue that we have no access to.”
Mr Copland said the decision to not have camps in the first month of school would also have a negative impact on students.
“This is the time for leadership camps. They’ll come and choose their captains, set the tone for the year, and set the culture in their schools,” he said.
The return to school in Queensland was delayed by two weeks due to the Omicron wave.
Mr Copland said an additional four weeks of not being able to hold camps meant outdoor education providers had essentially been shut down for six weeks, without being in an official lockdown.
“We understood the delay [to the start of the school year], but the big disappointment is that this [new decision] isn’t a health directive.
“Community sport is still happening. People can go wherever they like, and camps are very well managed.”
He says Queensland is “out of step” with other states, citing Victoria’s “Positive Start” initiative which includes $84 million funding to provide additional school camps.
“These are formation experiences in a young person’s life. They remember their favourite teacher, they’ll remember their sports carnival, arts performance, and their school camp,” Mr Copland said.
“They’re missing those critical forming major experiences in their development. And we’re going to pay a price for these decisions down the track.”
The Department of Education said it recognised the suspension of camps and excursions would have an impact on the outdoor education sector but it was focused on ensuring schools were COVID-safe environments.
“Suspension of camps and excursions allows symptomatic students to be isolated and returned home more quickly, as well as reducing potential spread from students sleeping in close quarters (such as bunks/cabins/etc),” it said in a statement.
“Discussions with the outdoor education industry about the impacts of COVID-19 are ongoing.”
Calls for support package
Dom Courtney from Outdoors Queensland, the peak body of outdoor activities in the state, said many schools would not reschedule camps to a later date.
“School camps are a structured part of the curriculum, so it’s not like you can pick up and move it to a different part of the year, because teachers and students will have progressed past the point of those lessons,” Mr Courtney said.
“We’ve already asked about some sort of support package for the organisations and also the workers. They’re a very technically skilled group of people, people we don’t want to lose to the industry.
“There’s been talk about more outdoor learning spaces at schools, taking kids outside the classroom, and I know that Education Queensland is working a lot on the ventilation of the school rooms.
“And you know, we’ve certainly seen that there’s no more ventilated place than the outdoors.”
Key points:
- The Queensland Department of Education has suspended school camps and excursions for the first four weeks of the year
- One regional outdoor educator says it will cost his facility between $750,000 and $1 million
- The outdoor education sector is calling on the government to rethink the decision
Source
Peter Gunders
ABC News
See also:
- Back to school 2022 (Department of Education)
- How school camps can influence positive student, teacher relationships
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