$25m for expansion at college
An ‘‘ambitious’’ expansion plan for Wellington Girls’ College will see the Government splash $25 million on its redevelopment.
Education Minister Chris Hipkins announced the funding boost in Wellington yesterday.
Hipkins said the school would be given the huge amount of cash, necessary to redevelop the school which had students taught in alternative classrooms due to a lack of space.
He said the school’s increased student roll had put pressure on space and the work was overdue as the school increasingly relied on ageing relocatable classrooms.
Hipkins said that secondary schools across the country were bursting at the seams.
‘‘We know that we, as a country, have not been fast enough in responding to roll growth, particularly in some of our inner-city areas.’’
Some schools were having to play ‘‘catch up’’, he said. ‘‘If the investment had been made earlier it may have been easier to get ahead of the roll growth curve but we’re doing our best to catch up.
‘‘Like other urban schools with limited space, the best solution was for Wellington Girls’ College to build up, which it has done successfully in earlier developments.’’
Wellington Central MP and Finance Minister Grant Robertson was in tow for the announcement, where he said the school was not built for its current roll of about 1500 pupils.
‘‘The corridors are full and, as they [the school] said, finding good classroom space is actually, really difficult. This will address that issue.
‘‘We can’t promise to do everything at once but this is a good example of a large scale project that we can put the money in.’’
The announcement was one in a series that’s expected to be made in coming weeks.
The project involves building a new teaching block to provide 16 extra teaching spaces.
The hall will also be extended and more space added to the learning support and student counselling areas of the administration block.
Work is expected to start in 2020 with an initial timeframe of about three years. Students can expect disruptions while construction work is under way.
Wellington Girls’ College principal Julia Davidson said she had tears ‘‘of joy’’ when the funding was approved in December last year – it was the largest secret she had ever kept.