Converging distance education initiatives and information technology initiatives within the states' and territories' schooling sectors in Australia: what is the 'state of play'?

There are significant and concurrent changes occurring within the public schooling sectors within the states and territories of Australia. Many schools and other organisational units within the state and territory public schooling systems in Australia are geographically distant from each other. Governments and private industry in Australia have and are continuing to invest large amounts of money integrating the use of information technologies and telecommunications as central reforms within their state and territories respective schooling systems. This is consistent with 'whole of government' policies and plans at state and national levels, across a range of industry areas, which outline the importance of Australia becoming an information rich society. Distance education within the schooling sector within the states and territories in Australia is increasingly moving towards using information technologies and telecommunications for the delivery of courses. Each of these reforms are significant in themselves and together represent substantial changes to the public schooling landscape for both mainstream and distance education in the schooling sectors in Australia. These reforms have the potential to generate significant changes in the way public schooling is organised and the way teachers teach and students learn. This paper will present a map of the macro view of the extent of public and private investment being made into the use of information technologies and telecommunications within the state and territories public schooling sectors within Australia. This will be disaggregated to analyse the extent of financial support for distance education within the public schooling sectors. Given this information and some clarity about what is going on, it will be possible to more carefully examine how the combination of new technologies and new partnerships is leading to new models of teaching and learning.