It appears that the region’s Catholic school headquarters is picking up the slack when it comes to the need for more education facilities for Maitland’s growing population.
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Maitland councillor Robert Aitchison accused the state government of sitting on its hands last week and allowing other bodies to provide solutions for the city’s growing education needs.
While it should be pointed out that Cr Aitchison is a Labor councillor – and is the husband of Labor’s state Maitland MP Jenny Aitchison – he has a point about the stance of the coalition government.
In the past week, the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle has confirmed it is considering sites in the Rutherford and Aberglasslyn areas as possible locations for new schools.
It has also applied for a 50 per cent expansion of St Aloysius Primary School at Chisholm, which opened 18 months ago, and plans to build a new high school next door.
It’s fantastic news that organisations like the Catholic diocese are willing and able to fill the void and provide educational facilities in Maitland.
But the fact remains that some families would prefer public education for their children, for one reason or another.
The state of play at the moment means parents have a choice of sending children to increasingly crowded public schools or to Catholic, Christian or otherwise independent schools, for an education.
This really isn’t good enough on the part of the state government, but it’s hardly surprising.
Before the 2015 state election, Labor leader Luke Foley pledged to build two new schools in Maitland’s west if his party won government.
But that didn’t eventuate, and the coalition didn’t match Labor’s promise, so the prospect of new public schools in the west disappeared into the horizon.
At the time, the government’s response to questions about the need for new schools in Maitland was that expansions were taking place at facilities such as Rutherford Technology High School.
The question is, at what point does the population growth create the need for a new school, rather than simply making the existing ones a bit bigger?
The Catholic diocese wouldn’t be making the moves it has been in Maitland recently if it didn’t see a demand for new schools.
