The Alice Springs School of the Air provides an educational service for about 120 children living on properties or settlements covering over 1 million square kilometers of Central Australia . These children grow and develop in a peculiar situation, isolated in a unique environment and their formal education must of necessity be unorthodox..     How then do they compare with the child maturing in a middle-class suburban environment? In many ways the bush children clearly have an advantage over those living in a town or city. They are active, healthy, well fed, and free of many of the restrictions of time and space which inhibit other youngsters.   The Alice Springs School of the Air was the first of its kind established in Australia . It is a compulsory aged correspondence school that utilises various communications technologies to have daily contact with students, home tutors and teachers. The first radio broadcasts were made from the Royal Flying Doctor Base in Alice Springs , Northern Territory (NT), in 1951 and the last from the Head Street premises in 2005.   It now uses the internet instead of the old radios and Webcams so that the children can see there teachers and other students.   For more information visit there website; http://www.assoa.nt.edu.au/