Education Benalla Program Manager

Tomorrow Today is Benalla district's community foundation, formed and run by local people with the purpose of enabling the creation of a stronger, more resilient and prosperous rural community. Our vision is a generous community, able to achieve a stronger tomorrow by challenging itself today. Benalla is highly socially disadvantaged, rating in the worst top 40 of the 726 Victorian postcodes investigated as part of Prof. Tony Vinson’s study “Dropping Off the Edge: the distribution of disadvantage in Australia”. Prof. Vinson noted in his report on disadvantage that it was difficult to deny the centrality of limited education and its impact on the acquisition of economic and life skills in the making and sustaining of disadvantage in Australia In relation to education, Benalla has a number of problems that are either the consequence of social disadvantage, or that increase levels of social disadvantage. These problems include a high proportion of children starting school without the range of skills necessary to move forward with learning; reducing levels of literacy and numeracy in the early school years; low levels of wellbeing amongst the student population; a disproportionately high level of school leaving prior to Year 12; a concentration of Year 12 completers without tertiary qualifications in low-skilled occupations that are the least secure; and an inability for families to financially support the transition of children to higher education or training. A program to achieve real change in educational attainment levels has been in operation in Benalla since 2010. Called “Education Benalla Program” (EBP) it works with families, schools, governments, business and community organisations to improve Benalla student outcomes. EBP is on track to achieve its objective that by 2030 the education and training completion rates of Benalla students will equal or exceed the Victorian average.