Once again, a private education provider is picking up the state government's slack when it comes to addressing need in our community.
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Over the next eight weeks, St Philip’s Christian College will conduct due diligence on two blocks of land at Aberglasslyn in the hope of buying the spaces for a new Kindergarten to Year 12 school for 1200 students.
If all goes to plan, St Philip’s Christian Education Foundation Executive Principal Graeme Irwin said the hope was to take enrollments for the school – on two plots at Liddell Avenue and Weblands Street – for 2020.
The idea that a new school could be up and running in the next three years is excellent news for the region’s families, especially given the Maitland area’s rapidly growing population.
Maitland Deputy Mayor Cr Ken Wethered (pictured) is on board and agrees that the west needs another school.
“It's obvious the population in this area of the city is growing and there is a need for a Christian school in the west," he said.
When state member Jenny Aitchison was campaigning to win the state seat of Maitland in 2014, she brought NSW Labor leader Luke Foley to the region to promise two new schools for the city’s west.
Unfortunately, the state government has refused to recognise the need enough to match that commitment.
In the end, Labor was not elected to government so the schools weren’t delivered.
Instead, the government embarked on a series of expansions at Maitland area schools.
But you only have to look at the numbers to see the flaw in this tactic.
According to figures released by Labor earlier this year, Rutherford Technology High School topped the list of schools with the highest number of demountable classrooms in the Hunter with 15.
The Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle sees the need for new schools in our area – it built a new primary school and plans to build another high school in Maitland’s east.
With this in mind, it’s fanciful to think that Maitland doesn’t need more schools.
But ultimately, the state government’s argument that there is insufficient need is trumped by a simple question: Why would St Philip’s sink its own money into building a new school in an area that doesn’t need one? The answer is, it wouldn’t.