The World's Largest School, Alice Springs School of the Air

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Alice Springs is right in the centre of Australia, roughly 1500 km from both Darwin and Adelaide. Our Ghan excursion train reached the small town of about 24,000 people on the second day of our journey south through the centre of Australia. One of the highlights of the few hours we spent in the town was a visit to the School of the Air, the world's largest school. In actual fact the school building is quite small, but it delivers education to the students of central area Australia, covering an area of about 1.3 million square kilometres. Most of the students and their families live in remote places, hundreds of kilometres from their nearest neighbours. They come from cattle stations, indigenous communities, camel farms, national parks, mining camps and other remote communities. Their schooling is delivered over the airwaves and also with modern technology enabling them to have contact with their teachers in Alice Springs. They have face to face connection with their teachers who fly in from Alice twice a year, as well as one or two weeks spent at the school. I can't imagine what it would be like to live so far from any other neighbours. The families definitely have to be strong enough to face all kinds of situations. At least they know their children are receiving a quality education.