Shine Awards 2023: Pop Education founder Sarah Phillips breaks down barriers for rural students

Bendigo e-learning expert Sarah Phillips sets the record straight; disability and rural location have nothing to do with capability.

Kangaroo Flat entrepreneur Sarah Phillips has always heard people talk about the things she won’t be able to do.

Instead of listening to the doubters, she has dedicated her education career to proving them wrong.

As co-founder and managing director of Bendigo e-learning company Pop Education, Sarah is levelling the education playing field for other regional and rural people like her, whose circumstances, location or disabilities make remote study their preferred option.

“When I started out in this, being an e-learning champion, a lot of people were very negative about it,” she said. “I’d been doing this for 15 years before Covid hit and we were still battling.

Sarah Phillips is managing director Pop Education, running a thriving business from a regional base despite living with a variant of spina bifida. Picture: Zoe Phillips

“For me it is so inclusive. It allows people with disabilities to have access to high-quality learning.

“They can choose where they want to study and make those choices based on the quality of that education and not necessarily their geographical location.”

Sarah founded the business with her brother, Alex.

Together they built Pop Education into a respected authority in online training, education and assessment. Sarah and her team of 15 staff have worked with TAFEs, education providers and employers nationwide to design e-courses that allow people to learn almost anything, anywhere.

She is also removing location as a barrier to employment, with many of her staff working from regional locations nationwide.

“I think it is so awesome we can provide people that opportunity to live where they want to live and still make a mark on a national industry and be part of something,” she said.

Sarah is a nominee in The Weekly Times Shine Awards, supported by Harvey Norman. Now in its seventh year, the campaign celebrates rural and regional women who make a big difference to their communities and industries.

Sarah was born with a form of spina bifida called lipomyelomeningocele – where her spinal cord developed outside of her backbone.

Australian wheelchair tennis great Dylan Alcott was born with a similar condition.

Doctors had told Sarah’s family she would be in a wheelchair by the age of 13.

“My excuse was that nobody told me,” said the 45-year-old, who had successful surgery as a baby that allowed her to walk.

“Although there were issues of pain and sciatica as I was growing up … it didn’t impair me that much.”

She said much credit was due to her parents, who insisted on raising her with a focus on her strengths.

About four years ago, however, compression in her spine was causing increasingly severe nerve pain.

She had surgery in 2020 to try to alleviate the symptoms. But instead of relief, she was left with more pain and loss of movement in her legs.

“It was devastating,” she said.

The implications of the failed surgery – which resulted in nerve damage, scar tissue and a large cyst in her spinal cord – were difficult for Sarah to come to terms with.

“I didn’t experience the grief for two years after it happened, because I thought I would get better. And now I know I’m not,” she said.

She works with an exercise physiologist daily to maintain as much mobility and autonomy as possible, and is determined to one day be able to dance again.

She said her partner Liam was also committed to supporting her to make the most of her abilities.

Sarah Phillips’s Pop Education employs 15 people. Picture: Zoe Phillips

She is equally intent on continuing to lead from the front in her business.

“I think people misinterpret your capabilities,” Sarah said.

“I have a carer. It takes me twice as long to get dressed in the morning … I need help to cook, which used to be my hobby.

“But it doesn’t mean I’m not good at what I do.

“I spent my first two years (after the 2020 surgery) apologising to people for being a burden.

“My exercise physiologist taught me to own it, and to not be afraid of the way people saw me.

“Disability is one of those things … you can let it rule you. A lot of people do.

“I just refuse to give up.”

Before her recent surgery, Sarah had been a regular speaker at national vocational education and e-learning conferences.

She said returning to the circuit this year had been a big step.

“Having been on the conference circuit for 15 years, I knew a lot of those people, and they knew me being walking and normal,” she said. “When we got to the Gold Coast, they recognised the gravity of the situation and that I’d been going through all this without anyone noticing.”

Sarah’s colleague Colleen Mandaliti was one person who did know what she had been going through.

“Without a doubt, Sarah is one of the bravest, most resilient, and inspiring women I know, and I am proud to call her my friend,” said Colleen, who nominated her for the Shine Awards.

“She has never given up on her goals to succeed in business and in life, and despite her own health issues, she continues to lead and inspire the Pop Education team.”

Sarah has always had a passion for education.

But she said her experience living with lipomyelomeningocele had also motivated her choice of careers.

“I knew that I wasn’t going to be as fit as everybody else for all of my life,” she said. “I needed to have a plan, and e-learning provided me with that opportunity.

“This is one of the most amazing jobs in the world to have. To be able to help people become someone that contributes in a meaningful way to their communities.”

If you know a rural woman like Sarah, who makes a real difference to her community or industry, nominate her for the Shine Awards in the form below.