Boost for research into Indigenous education and control of crop-eating insects

Australian Government funding of $4.95m will assist Western Australian universities to partner with governments and industry to research the control of crop-eating insects, improve the communication of fire threat information and better understand the learning needs of rural and remote Indigenous vocational education students. The research projects are among 20 Western Australian projects receiving a total of $4.95 million from the government’s Linkage Projects scheme.

Using a $288,000 grant, the University of Western Australia will lead a project to control chewing insect pests by interfering with their growth and reproductive patterns.

Edith Cowan University will use a $179,982 grant to reprocess satellite data into a form that will assist community decision making at times of fire stress.

Curtin University of Technology will use an $87,000 grant to develop a literacy needs analysis model for use by educators assessing the learning needs of rural and remote Indigenous vocational education students.

For more information on these projects and to see a list of all projects, visit www.arc.gov.au/media/major_announce.htm.