Maintaining Organisational Viability
The Howard Government’s announcement of a $10 million Lifesaving Academy is the most significant development in training and development for Surf Life Saving since the introduction of the Bronze Medallion in 1910.
The Academy will lead to safer beaches by providing high quality lifesaving training to young people from Australia and the Asia Pacific region. SLSA President, Ron Rankin AM, said training has been a core activity for Surf Life Saving for almost 100 years and has enabled surf lifesavers to save more than 500,000 lives in that time. “The Australian Lifesaving Academy will deliver benefits to the front line of our training and assessing network and will lead to huge improvements for every aspect of our movement – from lifesaving and lifeguard services, community service, through to surf sports development,” he said.
The new Academy will consist of a national headquarters in Sydney, regional headquarters in each state and the NT, and Centres of Excellence in states with a high number of beach-goers.
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The Minister for Vocational and Technical Education, the Hon Gary Hardgrave MP said the new Academy will provide a nationally consistent approach to surf rescue and public safety training and development programs. “Australia’s beaches are set to become even safer through this initiative, which will increase the number of qualified patrolling lifesavers by more than 61,000 over the next four years,“ Mr Hardgrave said. The Academy will aim to deliver an extra 31 vocational and technical education accredited programs by 2009-10. “I am particularly pleased that this initiative will create opportunities for Australian youth to learn, value and apply vital skills in an iconic Australian community activity. “It is particularly appropriate as we approach 2007, the Year of the Surf Lifesaver. Surf lifesavers have been the angels of our beaches for 100 years and we intend to see they are around for another 100.”
SLSA has an established distribution network consisting of state offices, regional branches and over 300 clubs which have existing capability at varying levels that provide training and education services, across the country. In 2004-05, SLSA provided 52,974 SLSA awards to members and 7,900 awards to the general public. Further, SLSA provided 3,646 VET certificates to members and 4,345 VET certificates to the general public.
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