January 23, 2008 

The Parliamentary Club was showcased in Newcastle today at the biennial conference of the Social Educator’s Association of Australia. This gathering of social educators from around the nation provided an important forum to discuss the theme “Making a difference: Multidimensional Citizenship Education in a Changing World”.

Teaching practitioners and representatives from educational and government organisations were given a multi-media presentation by the Director of CEFA’s national initiative, Don Perna. The Parliamentary Club initiative was very well received by all present and seen to be a valuable multidimensional teacher resource, which compliments and enhances the teaching and learning of current curriculum content.

The initiative has been noted as having the capacity to address the many issues in the field of social education and the capability of producing students who are highly informed and active citizens of the future. In CEFA’s first 12 months promoting the project, 22 schools from NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia have become participants.

The Parliamentary Club has become a highly sought after whole-of-school civics initiative with 28 schools from around Australia awaiting training and many teacher organisations requesting the inclusion of the project in their professional journals. The first for 2008 will appear in an edition of the History Teacher’s Association of Victoria (HTAV)  quarterly ‘Agora’ in term one this year.