Peter Andren (Calare, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

The Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2007 is very timely, coming as it does at a time when I am fielding more and more concerns from public schools in the Calare electorate about a perceived shift of the goalposts as far as this Investing in Our Schools Program is concerned. Let us put this $1 billion scheme into perspective. It is very welcome to school communities because it does fill an urgent need and a rapidly deepening hole in the provision of basic infrastructure and facilities in schools right across the country.

Last week I visited Yeoval Central School, between Orange and Dubbo, where a new agriculture shed and garden, fencing and stockyards, as well as paving and computers, have been provided under this program—and very welcome they are. These are facilities that that community could in no way have afforded inside the next decade, probably ever, without this program. Yeoval was one of the luckier schools: it received what it needed under its application. But not so a school like South Bathurst Public School. In 2006 this school received $5,000 to engage an architect to design building modifications to the main teaching block so that practical lessons such as craft and art could be undertaken. This had to be modified into a stand-alone structure that would require the maximum $150,000 or thereabouts on offer under the Investing in Our Schools Program. This school and many others are now dismayed to see the maximum amount available to schools reduced to $100,000. The guidelines on construction projects state:

Funding recipients are responsible for following state-specific building or construction requirements and for obtaining necessary approvals before applying.

That is what South Bathurst Public School had done, and it was waiting for the final round of submissions before applying for around $130,000 to complete the work, having received two smaller grants totalling around $22,000. It will either have to drastically modify the project, which it had followed the correct procedures to design and put in place, or look for some other work, which no doubt will be of benefit. But the fact is it proceeded along a path and believed it was fulfilling the guidelines and now finds that it has been pulled up short, at least on its expectations if not on the funding required.

The Carenne Special School in Bathurst is another example. It is a school for children with moderate to severe intellectual disability and, in the case of 15 students, significant physical disability. The school has developed a project with the expectation of Investing in Our Schools funding for a mini gymnasium to improve the physical therapy, gross motor and physical education programs so vital to the school’s 60 students. In round 2 of applications, the school applied for and was granted $137,000 to build the gymnasium. The school had planned to apply for the balance from the maximum allowable $150,000 to provide the necessary equipment. The guidelines for the program stipulated the need for separate applications to cover different parts of the program. However, with the maximum allowable grant reduced to $100,000, Carenne has run out of opportunities under this program. It has a brand-new gym, which it is certainly grateful for—it is a wonderful building; I saw it the other day on a visit to the school—but it has no equipment. It will have to try to raise the money from an already financially stretched school community, or maybe some white knight may travel into town—

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