Capricornia School of Distance Education and Oshu City Board of Education have had a Sister-School agreement since
2019. Negotiations began when a CapSDE teacher was approached by a former colleague from Oshu, asking about
the possibility of a partnership with our school.
The proposal was a very exciting, yet daunting prospect, as being a School of Distance Education, the logistics of a
homestay program would not be straight forward. We continued to broker an agreement, and in November of 2019,
three representatives from Oshu Board of Education flew to Rockhampton to visit CapSDE and inspect the local
attractions. The official agreement was signed in April, 2020.
The Covid pandemic then put a hold on any study tour plans, however, this is where the benefits of being a School of
Distance Education shone through. We were well positioned to be able to offer online lesson exchanges between
CapSDE students and students in Oshu. For the last four years, we have continued the relationship by arranging
many online lesson exchanges with Oshu schools. Ken Davis (Oshu BoE), Georgina Harch (DP, CapSDE) and our
wonderful Japanese department have been facilitating these. They have been highly successful and are a great
opportunity for our students to get an insight into the life of a Japanese student, and to practise their Japanese is a
real-life context (and English for the Oshu students).
The Oshu city government oversee the public schools in their area; the agreement is between our school and all the
Junior High schools within the Oshu region. We knew that having a homestay exchange program as a School of
Distance Education was going to be a challenge, but figured why should our students miss out on an opportunity like
this.
The 2024 Study Tour is the very first visit homestay program of hopefully many more to come. We also look forward
to pursuing a reciprocal visit by CapSDE students in the future.
2024 Study Tour Details:
Wednesday July 31 – Tuesday August 6
15 Junior Secondary students from Oshu
3 Officials from Oshu City Board of Education
Information on Oshu City:
It is located on the northern part of Honshu, Japan. It is a beef cattle producing region, famous for Maesawa Beef.
Japanese professional baseball player, Shohei Ohtani is from Oshu. He is currently signed to a 10-year, $700 million
contact with the Los Angeles Dodgers.