Libs’ $22m school offer
THE Liberal Party has pledged $22 million for a new school for 850 students at Sorell.
Premier Will Hodgman said if his Government was re-elected, work on a school from kinder to Year 12 would begin next financial year and feature a state-of-the-art science, technology, engineering and maths facility.
“We are in one of the fastest growing municipalities in the state,” he said.
“We are at a school that is well populated and has some of the state’s best teachers and educators in that fantastic school community, that realise the current infrastructure here is simply not up to scratch. We are a Government that fundamentally believes that our state’s future depends on the strength of our school and education system.”
Mr Hodgman said that in addition to the new school, the Government would build a new early childhood education and care facility on the site.
He said one of the benefits of the new school would be to reduce traffic on arterial roads into Hobart because students would no longer need to travel further afield to Rosny or to Hobart to further their education.
Education Minister Jeremy Rockliff said the new school would be a fantastic asset for the growing Sorell community.
“What’s exciting about this redevelopment is it will be a K to 12 learning facility but also provision and space will be provided for the early childhood education and care sector to ensure that, in essence, parents will have one drop-off point from childcare right through to Grade 12,” Mr Rockliff said.
Sorell Mayor Kerry Vincent also welcomed the Liberal Party’s promise.
“It’s absolutely fantastic news,’’ he said.
“This is something we have been working on with our local member Rene Hidding for about four years now to build up the evidence around the growth and all the factors that we know have been happening in the surrounding areas for a lot of years.
“This is just the culmination of a lot of hard work over several years.
“It would make a huge difference to our regional communities around Sorell because we have a very low retention rate of students at the moment to allow more people from early learning through to mature-age education programs to happen. So it’s going to benefit whole communities.”