City and State: A Partnership for Building Community Capacity in ICTs and Promoting Lifelong Learning

McDonald BS¹*, Campin S²*

1. Education Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
2. Brisbane City Council, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

The Community Access to ICTs in Schools (CAICTS) project focuses on school and community engagement and, building community capacity through the provision of skills training in information and communications technologies (ICTs). The initiative has aimed to respond to Queensland Government and Brisbane City Council priorities, in particular, skilling the community, breaking down the digital divide and fostering lifelong learning.

The project demonstrates the effectiveness of establishing a new intergovernmental and community partnership using existing infrastructure to achieve common goals. The partnership between the two levels of government, participating schools and volunteers has delivered training to 4755 participants at sixty sites across Brisbane City, from 2002–2004.

This session will provide delegates with an overview of “what works” and an analysis of the key success factors contributing to this project. In particular, policy development, partner support and involvement, shared goals and responsibilities, program flexibility, course materials, funding arrangements, facilitator training and evaluation processes will be considered. The use of national Census data for monitoring and targeting potential areas for future service delivery will also be demonstrated.

Project successes, challenges and future directions will be examined using the extensive feedback provided by participants, schools and course facilitators. This will be supported by the individual reflections of a participant, facilitator and school. Insights gathered from working in partnership will be addressed in the context of a conceptual framework that can be used for innovative service delivery.

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