Seven schools may be spared
CANBERRA TIMES
Seven schools may be spared
Elizabeth Bellamy
Saturday, 8 July 2006
Up to seven of the 39 schools targeted for closure by the ACT Government may win reprieves after intense lobbying from school communities.
Focused campaigns, well-maintained buildings and the location of some may spare the schools.
Observers say Dickson College, Kambah High and Gilmore, Hall, Tharwa, Rivett and Giralang primary schools may remain open.
Communities have sprung into action in the month that has followed the revelation of the Government’s school closure plan, organising protests, petitions and community meetings. They also plan to picket ACT Labor’s annual conference at Rydges Hotel on July 29.
Education Minister Andrew Barr has also been meeting school representatives, including delegations from Dickson College, and Rivett, Cook, Flynn and Tharwa primary schools last week.
ACT Council of Parents and Citizens Associations president Jane Gorrie said Dickson College, slated to close in 2008 as Campbell High adds Years 11-12 to its year range, had mounted a strong case.
Parents had welcomed the minister’s promise last week “not to foist a Year 7-12 model on the community if they don’t want it”.
And Tharwa Primary’s rural location also made it a strong candidate for a reprieve. Australian Education Union ACT branch secretary Clive Haggar said Hall and Tharwa’s rural status could spare them from closure.
“I don’t think you can say that [Hall] kids are just from NSW,” he said. “The NSW border runs just north of the town.”
Save Our Schools network spokesman Dr Ian Morgan said Kambah High also stood a chance.
“Apart from performing a real education service in that area it is also home to nearly three learning support units,” he said.
Giralang Primary’s architectural design and the well-maintained facilities of Gilmore Primary may also save them from closure, and Rivett Primary parents are confident, after their meeting with Mr Barr, they can raise enrolments to acceptable levels.
Opposition education spokeswoman for education Vicki Dunne was reluctant to name schools that could be spared, but said about 90 per cent would close.
“I think there will be a few reprieves closer to the [2008] election and tinkering around the edges,” she said.
“[But] I think most of them are at a very high risk of closing.”
The minister has conceded not all schools will shut. He said yesterday the community had put forward a range of closure alternatives, including school amalgamations and offering some programs on other sites.
But one of Canberra’s four northside colleges would have to shut or “significantly reconfigure” its offerings to cope with low student numbers in the region.
The situation would be exacerbated when a Gungahlin college opened in 2011.
However, Australian National University academic Dr Rick Kuhn said the Government’s admission some schools may be spared, and reluctance to issue figures driving the closure decision, was designed to “divide and conquer” schools, pitting one against the other.
“The reason why they’re not releasing the [documents] where their calculations are is because that would provide the basis for a uniform response” allowing schools to critique the Government’s figures, the reader in political science said.
Issuing the data would also reveal the number of schools the Government was intending to shut.
Meanwhile, the tactic was weakening support for schools from those not on the hit list, who would receive a share of the $90million to be spent over four years on infrastructure upgrades.
“The Government is promising, in terms that are often vague, to improve the remaining schools,” he said. “The threat is clear don’t sympathise with people whose kids are going to the doomed schools, or your kids will get less.”
The Government’s mandatory six-month consultation period ends in December, with the last of eight public consultation meetings held on Monday.
The Government will now host forums for the business community and meetings for residents to explain the new school models.
Submissions on the proposal close on November 3, and the Government will issue a report on the consultation process later that month. However, Dr Kuhn said the Government had dictated the terms of consultation to date. “The Government has gotten away with setting the agenda with how things are going to operate,” he said. While a Liberal government approached community consultation like a tiger - “You growl and show your teeth and claws” - Labor governments took a different approach. “[They are] like a boa constrictor - they hug and consult you to death.”