There is a close relationship between proficiency in literacy and numeracy and future employment opportunities (Productivity Commission Staff Working Paper: Literacy and Numeracy Skills and Labour Market Outcomes in Australia 2014). Various studies suggest that people with poorer educational results are more likely to be unemployed and to have lower lifetime earnings. In 2024 the Grattan Institute reported that failure to reach proficiency in reading has real personal costs for children and young people, as well as having detrimental effects on schools, the economy, and society (The Reading Guarantee February 2024). The Grattan Institute calculated that students in school today who are hardest hit by poor reading performance will cost Australia around $40 billion over their lifetimes.
Grattan Institute analysis of 2022 NAPLAN data also shows that a significant gap separates the achievement levels of advantaged and disadvantaged children in Year 3, and that by Year 9 this learning gap becomes a chasm. Once children fall behind, they often struggle to catch up, irrespective of their level of advantage.
In response, community members are supporting educational outcomes, through school-based volunteering programs. For twenty-five years, a Western Australian charity, EdConnect Australia, has brought together volunteers from all walks of life to work in schools with students who may be struggling with fundamental literacy and numeracy skill development. Some students lack structure in their home lives or are at serious risk of disengaging from education. Volunteers are recruited, screened, trained and placed into schools by EdConnect. Schools take responsibility to allocate these supplementary volunteer resources to benefit students.
Volunteers assist during lessons or provide support to students needing a little extra time on core subjects. EdConnect volunteers provide mentoring, working one-on-one with students or in small groups providing a listening ear, an alternative adult figure in a student’s life and a consistent and constant presence at school.
The initiative is partly-funded by the Department of Education and is supported by corporate sponsorships, including the Alcoa Foundation, Hanrine Foundation and a Telethon grant.
EdConnect is regarded as a highly cost-effective model of support to schools.
In 2023, approximately 44,000 hours were spent in 175 schools by over 650 volunteers, working with 13,000 students.
Although EdConnect volunteers do not replace core teaching and educational support resources, their impact on students can be simply phenomenal. From core-skill improvement to psychosocial development, including improved relationships with peers and teaching staff, annual school feedback demonstrates the value of the program.
There are never-ending calls for more resources into core community services, including education. The commitment of volunteers to the EdConnect program reflects the regard in which education and educational institutions are held in the Australian community – the value of a good education as a primary building block in a young person’s life and the value to the community of having its citizens with well-established core skills.
At the same time, and not to be ignored, as proposed by the World Health Organisation in 2015, community engagement which encourages older adults to be more cognitively and physically active and socially connected may also reduce demand on health and care services, an equally challenging scenario being faced by countries with aging populations.
Accessing the wisdom of older people, valuing their contribution in the skill development of a new generation through the formal education system, can’t resolve all the problems in a system under pressure, but it can go towards relieving pressure points that will continue to challenge this community as it does many others.
