ONE of the biggest lessons Jacob Wilkinson learned after he finished year 12 was to get outside the Melbourne bubble.
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After completing his VCE and being accepted into university, Mr Wilkinson became acquainted with students who had travelled from regional areas to study – and was astounded by their differences in their experience of year 12.
The most notable was how very few regional students had access to subject tutors outside of their schools, something he said was common among metropolitan students.
“Students from Melbourne would have a tutor for every subject – it was weird if you didn't,” Mr Wilkinson said.
“When we came to uni and met people from outside that Melbourne bubble, it was clear that the difference wasn't really in the quality of facilities or teachers in those schools, but the quality and lack of tutors.”
This discovery prompted Mr Wilkinson and some of his colleagues to create the Regional Education Support Network, a free online tutoring service for regional and rural students.
A successful pilot program, trialled in Wodonga and Seymour, resulted in more than 100 volunteer tutors signing up to provide advice online, as well as a growing number of students submitting questions and essays.
Mr Wilkinson said the Network was now looking to expand to more schools across regional Victoria.
“The point is that exams are coming up, there's a lot of pressure and stress, and this makes it easy to sign up and ask a question,” he said.
“Where teachers might not have the time to get back to you, here you can upload an essay and have some points back in 24 hours.
“Our pilot programs in Wodonga and Seymour were about making sure all the systems worked, now we're in the process of recruiting regional liaisons who will get us in contact with different places across Victoria.
“This is now, it's something that hasn't really been done before – 20 years ago this wouldn't have been possible, but the technology is here now.”
Mr Wilkinson said there were also plans in the works for students to remain in touch with tutors once their schooling is complete, in case they have any queries about university.
The 2018 VCE examination period has already commenced, with oral exams for foreign language subjects beginning on October 8.
The biggest written exam, VCE English, will be held on October 31.
The finals exams for the year will be held on November 21.
In NSW, the HSC exam period is slated to begin on Thursday, with the first paper of their English exam.
