THE Isolated Children's Parents' Association (ICPA) will celebrate its 50th anniversary this year, with the organisation's annual conference to be held in Longreach, Queensland, in July.
ICPA Federal president Alana Moller said the ICPA had continued to advocate for geographically isolated families throughout its existence, with its membership standing at about 2500 families.
"We are a grassroots organisation and it's all about our members, as it's our members that have kept it going for so long," Ms Moller said.
"We now have more than 100 branches across Australia as well as the State and Federal councils and we all work together aiming for equitable education for our students."
The ICPA declared a Geographically Isolated Distance Education Day on December 1 last year to recognise the work of geographically isolated families in educating their children.
"We wanted to get the message out there that those families deserve to be recognised and appreciated for what they do and that it's been done for generations," Ms Moller said.
Looking back on the organisation's history, she said while some of the same issues had popped up over the years for its members, COVID-19 had presented its own unique challenges.
"The boarder border situation is ongoing," Ms Moller said.
"If hotspots are declared those boarders who are boarding interstate - will they be able to get back to their schools and home in their holidays and vice versa?
"We are calling for a nationally consistent approach and guidelines to that so that families aren't facing angst when these situations arise."
The ICPA has also been advocating for decentralisation of Australia's regional education system, submitting a collaborative document with combined statements from ICPA State councils in November last year.
"You could say it's a State issue because they're controlling the borders but it becomes a national issue when it's across every jurisdiction, which it is at the moment," Ms Moller said.
ICPA WA president Sally Brindal said the pandemic had heightened people's awareness of the daily struggles faced by those living in geographically isolated locations.
"I think COVID has given a wider appreciation of what is involved when you don't have the option of face-to-face, classroom learning available to you and the only way of accessing education is remotely and online," Ms Brindal said
However she said a silver lining could be found from the pandemic in that it had sped up the rollout of online learning platforms and tools for Australian students.
"COVID has demonstrated that learning can be done through the online platforms and a lot of teachers upskilled quite quickly, so it would be great to see our State capitalise on those skills," Ms Brindal said.
"The government made a number of different online educational resources available to all Australian families and a lot of those resources they are still maintaining which is a really great outcome but we would like to see our rural schools have even greater access to more online resources."
The ICPA WA branch is also campaigning for the State government to increase its boarding away from home allowance.
"With the reduction of the boarding away from home allowance - a lot of families are really feeling that - so we are pushing to get that reinstated or increased," Ms Brindal said.
"Nothing has really changed in the criteria, it's the way it's being applied which has disadvantaged some families in accessing travel allowances.
"The current government isn't 100 per cent on board with that, but we will see what the election brings and what is on the State government's agenda ahead of our State conference."
ICPA's WA branch State conference is scheduled for Friday, March 19 at the Ingot Hotel in Belmont.