Page 1200 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2016
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Let me take you through some examples: Ngunnawal Primary School has a notional enrolment capacity of 675. In January, the projected enrolment was estimated to be 564. The actual enrolment was 715. Mawson Primary School in January was listed as having a capacity of 475 and a projected 2016 enrolment of 320. The actual enrolment is 420: over 20 per cent more than a projection that was no more than a few months old. Red Hill primary has a notional capacity of 725 and a 2016 estimate of 608. But it has an actual February 2016 enrolment of 710.
I could go through school after school, but the story is mostly repeated. When we look at the newer areas in Gungahlin, there is no more alarming a crisis than in Franklin Early Childhood School. Franklin has a notional capacity of 210, an estimated 2016 enrolment of 181, but an actual enrolment of 290. When you look at the breakdown, this is a school that to date has had pupils in only four of the eight years it is intended to cater to. This year there was a preschool enrolment of 143. Multiply that through the eight years of schooling on offer at Franklin—that is, preschool to year 6—and you are looking at a school needing to cater for 1,100 pupils on a campus that was intended in 2015 to cater for 210.
Franklin is a new and rapidly growing area of Canberra and should have been better able to cope. But already there are overcrowding issues. We have anecdotal evidence from parents who, in looking for a preschool placement for their child next year, have been advised by directorate staff that the preschool year is not a compulsory year of attendance—code for “no room at the inn”. No parent wants their child to be denied any and every opportunity for education and I am quite sure that no directorate staff would want to have to deliver that message. But what choice do they have? Apparently none.
Altering priority enrolment areas may work in some areas, but for most it is not a practical choice. Apparently this school, unlike many older schools, did have an opportunity to expand with vacant land adjacent to it. However, I am reliably informed that the education minister at the time decided such expansion was not required, against the directorate’s advice. Why take such a short-sighted position? I suspect this school, like so many other schools and infrastructure projects in the ACT, is a victim of the light rail myopia.
If there is not enough money to buy land and build more classrooms, if we have a government that chooses instead to chase increased revenue by selling land to developers to build more apartments, which in turn will increase pressure on schools already overcrowded, it is not hysteria to suggest that we are facing an impending crisis. It is a crisis that could have been diverted.
I know that Coombs school is now up and running. I congratulate the government for getting this school completed in a relatively short time. But we need more than one Coombs school and we need more and expanded schools in the inner south and in Belconnen. It is disappointing that when the latest census figures were released there was much focus and chest-puffing about how popular the ACT public school system was, with increased numbers of students enrolled in government schools compared to
non-government schools. But there was no mention of the fact that too many of our schools are at a crisis point in terms of numbers.
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