Tuesday, 27 August 2024

South-Eastern Metropolitan Region schools

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:28): (1072) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Deputy Premier and Minister for Education Ben Carroll, and the action that I seek is for an update on the support provided to students in the south-east of Melbourne through the government’s Building Fund for Non-Government Schools. This building fund is a $450 million commitment to supporting low-fee independent and Catholic schools right across Victoria with essential building, expansion and other capital projects. Over the past year I have been absolutely honoured to work with one such terrific school in the area of Clyde North, and that is Clyde Grammar school.

We have an array of exciting new government schools opening in this area. Just as they are important, so too is the role of schools like Clyde Grammar in meeting the extreme demand that we have for schooling places in our growing suburbs. It is a terrific school, and I have had the opportunity to meet with them quite a few times and to meet with their students as well. I am delighted therefore to see that Clyde Grammar is one of 11 schools and has just been announced as a recipient of funding through the independent stream of round 1 of this Building Fund for Non-Government Schools with an investment of $3.6 million by the Allan Labor government to support the school.

Why it is so fantastic is that as the suburb of Clyde North is growing, so too are great schools like Clyde Grammar. Currently they take enrolments from prep to grade 4, and they are increasing that year by year, so today’s grade 4s can be next year’s grade 5s and so on. This $10.6 million project, which the $3.6 million in funding from the state government will be supporting, is critical, because without it the school would not be able to build the facilities it needs for the current grade 4s when they reach year 7. I am very excited to see this very timely announcement by the Deputy Premier, because it is going to ensure and guarantee that these young families who have moved into Clyde North who are at this terrific school – as with our other terrific local schools – have the choice of staying at that school as their kids go through year to year.

It does come on top of unprecedented investment that we have made in education right across the state of course but particularly in the south-east. In that same suburb alone of Clyde North we already have Ramlegh Park Primary School and Grayling Primary School, which have opened in the past few years, and Topirum Primary School, which opened this year. We are currently building a new onsite kindergarten at Topirum Primary, which is going to mean that students at that kindergarten can go straight into the primary school next door. I did have the great honour of having Minister Blandthorn here joining me at that site as well. On top of that, we are currently building three more public schools in the Clyde North suburb – that is one secondary school and two further primary schools – all of which are to meet the extremely strong demand for schools in this part of Melbourne’s south-east. The action that I am seeking from the minister is an update on how the Building Fund for Non-Government Schools will continue to support students in south-eastern Melbourne.