Education Is The Key

by Aug 7, 2019Policy, schools, Web0 comments

Four people holding up empty comments signs

On the 5 August, I was invited to give a presentation to the South Australian Small Schools Association (SSASA) about web accessibility and the online accessibility policy recently launched by the South Australian Government. This policy applies to public schools as well as all public-facing media.

SSASA represents 32 schools from metropolitan and rural areas of South Australia. While formal official announcements have yet to be made, the association took a proactive approach to the recent changes by requesting this presentation. They wanted to get informed and understand how these will affect the websites of their schools. In particular, SSASA school leaders were eager to know whether or not their current websites and all content are accessible. Sadly, upon examination, it can be demonstrated that they are not and this includes websites developed recently.

Edu Net Solutions is one of SASSA’s sponsors and we committed to helping them and also their sponsors work towards digital accessibility by ensuring that the public facing of all their members is made accessible. We are doing this not because there’s a policy saying we should do it but because it’s the right to do. We will provide honest advice that is consistent with this groundbreaking policy.

I truly believe that education is the key to our community becoming more inclusive through accessibility. There are far too many school websites in the state that are totally inaccessible to 20% of our community. I have several more presentations at private and public institutions already lined up. The interest from all sectors in the community has been higher than I anticipated, and I’m excited about that. I will share more about these presentations soon.

If you’re a school or organisation is ready to make your public-facing media accessible but aren’t sure how to go about it, contact us

I want to thank the Department for the Premier and Cabinet (DPC) for their ongoing support and especially for their help in putting this presentation together.

Thank you Cliff

Written by Kirio Crespo
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