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Some communities in rural and regional Australia have become known as ‘learning communities’ as they concentrate on learning to promote social cohesion, regeneration and economic development in the face of challenges, many of which are generated as the globalised knowledge economy emerges. In 2001, the Australian National Training Authority (ANTA) launched its learning communities pilot national project to encourage the development of learning communities and learn more about them. Ten rural and regional communities received funding to undertake a learning audit as the initial stage of becoming a learning community. As part of the project, each community completed an audit of their learning strategies and capacity to become a learning community. These audits consistently reveal a number of common themes that are seen as being essential for the sustainable development of learning communities. This is the story of the Peel Region in Western Australia (WA). Show less

The aim of the project reported here was to identify characteristics of a learning community and the type of vision and values that have been associated with effective lifelong learning and to consider how these might enmesh with existing planning and priorities of the City of Mandurah and the wider Peel region in Western Australia. A second feature of the investigation was to identify how the Peel Education and TAFE Campus could value-add to existing goals and initiatives in the region so that it could effectively support regional development and industry and community effort. For the purpose of this project ‘community’ was given a broad definition to include service organisations, voluntary groups, Indigenous people, other ethnic groups, arts and music groups, as well as a collective term for citizens within the region. The project provided opportunities for discussion to occur but it was decided that it should not take a directive role because there was the danger that this could be perceived as campus self-interest rather than an effort to understand community and industry needs. Because formal and non-formal education are the main activities of the Peel Education and TAFE Campus it was also important that the learning community vision was not dominated by campus activities and views which could have created an imbalance. At the same time, a lead agency required the resources to sustain learning community effort. The planning group debated the issue, particularly considering whether to target their resources and therefore have a greater chance of producing a positive outcome or whether to spread the resources more widely, in a spirit of fairness. A working group is now assisting the City of Mandurah in planning a community consultation forum to decide future directions.

The collection of papers is indexed at TD/TNC 73.601. Individual papers are indexed from TD/TNC 73.602 to TD/TNC 73.621 and from TD/TNC 73.681 to TD/TNC 78.689. Show less