The Interim Committee for the Australian Schools Commissioni in its Report in May 1973, considered the needs of disadvantaged schools. Many teachers in remote areas will not yet have had an opportunity to read this report and we felt that you would like us to make available to you some of the committee’s comments on disadvantaged schools.
9.5… The Committee has chosen the term “disadvantaged” in relation to schools drawing a high proportion of enrolments from neighbourhoods having certain characteristics known to be generally associated with a low capacity to take advantage of educational facilities. This is not to say that all children coming from such neighbourhoods achieve poorly in school. Low-income families may be emotionally richer than affluent ones. Nor can poor families be described as culturally or socially deprived in any general sense, for the cultural life of home and neighbourhood may be as sustaining, and the social experiences as broad, as those of any type of family. The poor are disadvantaged in their relative lack of power in society, in the absence of any cushioning against adversity, and in the paucity of the kind of experience which is helpful to success in school and society.
