Victoria’s Southern Grampians Shire, has been selected to help Australia work out what makes a learning community ‘tick’. RMIT University has received $10,000 to develop a case study of Southern Grampians Shire to be published as a guide for other communities around the country.
Southern Grampians is one of ten communities participating in an Australian National Training Authority (ANTA) project. ANTA Acting CEO, Paul Byrne, said Southern Grampians will be helping Australians equip themselves to survive and thrive in the knowledge economy by undertaking the case study.
“Every community has a pool of diverse skills, knowledge and resources which it can apply to making something happen locally, whether it’s attracting new industry and jobs for young people or improving the streetscape,” he said. “Learning communities recognise the importance of lifelong learning and creating lifelong opportunities for its members.
“RMIT University received an information kit which will help it to improve the link between existing educational providers, establishing new learning pathways for community members, and to promote understanding of and participation in lifelong learning. This project will help Australian communities learn from the experiences of others and help Australia move a little further along the continuum to a learning society,” he said.
Two learning community expert mentors, VET consultant Peter Kearns and a learning city expert from Albury-Wodonga, Jim Saleeba, are helping to guide the project and each community’s progress on its case study.
All communities are expected to report by March 2002.
