$23m for Spotswood College to ‘right size’
New Plymouth’s Spotswood College has been granted $23 million in government funding to ‘‘right size’’ and replace poor-condition classrooms.
The massive funding allocation was one of four major school building projects announced by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Education Minister Chris Hipkins at Auckland’s Northcote College yesterday.
Spotswood College principal Nicola Ngarewa thanked Ardern and Hipkins for remembering the regions and said it would enable them to build a state-of-the-art school.
‘‘We’re really fortunate to be one of the four schools involved and are very much looking forward for what this will do for the future of our region,’’ she said.
‘‘We have our new gym and new building at the front of our school, so have got two new state-of-the-art buildings already and this funding will be used to rebuild the rest of the school.’’
Board chair Mike Cole said the money would bring the school into this century and make it the right size for the curriculum.
Last year Spotswood College left the traditional, subject-driven timetable behind and launched into the education model known as DisruptED, which aims to give students the ability to take charge of their education and prepare them for the future of work.
The decile 5 high school has a role of nearly 800 students but was built to accommodate more. In the mid 1990s the school’s roll hovered around 1200.
Auckland’s Northcote College received the single biggest funding package, getting $48.5m to build a new gym, rebuild or upgrade 20 classrooms and restore heritage buildings.
The other school redevelopments included $33.5m to extend an existing redevelopment project at Wanaka’s Mt Aspiring College to replace relocatable classrooms in poor condition and configure the site for future growth.
About $21m will go towards the rebuild of Twizel Area School, replacing existing relocatable classrooms that are up to 49 years old and in poor condition.
Design work for the school projects will start in 2021.
At the end of last year, the Government announced $400m in new funding for most state schools to invest locally in building companies and tradies to fix leaking roofs and windows and do other repair and building work.
Yesterday, Ardern said it was the most ambitious school redevelopment programme by a New Zealand government.
‘‘And it will upgrade around 180 schools over the next 10 years, representing more than 93,000 student places and needing many more workers. The first wave includes around 40 schools and has a budget of up to $1.3 billion.’’
Ardern said the projects would need hundreds of skilled workers.
Hipkins said the four projects and the $32m for Taita College, announced recently, would be a major boost to regional economies.
‘‘Construction companies need confidence to plan, and this government’s approach to plan ahead and roll projects up into large, billion dollar programmes – which we’ve also done with the National Education Growth Plan – provides greater scale and certainty.’’
‘‘These five projects alone will need hundreds of workers. We’re working on that too by offering free apprenticeships and training courses and providing support to firms to keep on their apprentices through Covid,’’ he said.
In August, the Government will make information available for the remaining schools in the programme.
Board chair Mike Cole said the money would bring the school into this century.