The Victorian Government has announced that it will spend $353 million to build 12 new schools and add facilities to seven others as it desperately tries to keep pace with Melbourne’s manic population growth:
Premier Daniel Andrews said most of the new schools – worth $283.3 million – would open in 2020 in the state’s growth areas.
“We know that our outer suburbs and indeed many parts of the state are growing rapidly and if we’re going to give every child every chance, we need to make sure we give parents the certainty and support they are entitled to,” Mr Andrews told reporters on Monday…
New primary schools will be built at Armstrong Creek West, Beveridge West, Botanic Ridge, Casey Fields, Clyde North East, Davis Creek, Keysborough South, Lucas and Wyndham South.
Craigieburn South and Point Cook South will get new high schools.
A Footscray Learning Precinct will be built at Seddon Secondary Campus, to open by 2021…
The state government will also spend $23.8 million on planning and early works for nine other schools.
All 28 schools to be built will accommodate more than 15,000 students.
“If we don’t build new schools, our schools are just going to be overrun,” Education Minister James Merlino told reporters.
“We need to accommodate about 90,000 additional students by 2022.”
So the Victorian Government is planning to build 28 Schools to accommodate an extra 15,000 students by sometime in the 2020s. Sound good doesn’t it? Except that it pales into insignificance against the rapid projected growth in Victorian school students:
In fact, according to Peter Goss, School Education Program Director at the Grattan Institute, Victoria will require 220 new schools in the decade to 2026 merely to keep pace with projected student enrolments:
How’s the federal government’s mass immigration ‘Big Australia’ policy working for you and your kids?
