City schools strategy needsreview
Terry PolglaseTerry Polglase warns that school communities will bear the brunt of changes to Hobart’ s learning model
W HEN former premier Will Hodgman announced that an inner-city high school would not be built in Hobart, Ogil vie High and New Town High were always going to become co educational, in name at least.
It is a major triumph for the government as many will recall that the 1999 Australian republic referendum was defeated largely because voters had no idea as to how the president would be chosen.
The two school associations have agreed to lose the singlesex status of their schools without any idea of the future model.
The schools may operate as they are now with shared offerings or become separate co educational schools in their own right as absolutely everything is on the table.
The bun fight that will now take place will be distant from government and at school community level.
Good luck with that but the government willb e understandably thrilled.
With the support of Labor and the Hobart High Community group( Josh Willie and Phillip a Duncan, Mercury, November 25) the decision will now allow for one or event woof the three Partner Schools to be forced into closure in the future if numbers do not rise and that is highly likely. Their single sex status was always going to save them from discussion around closure.
These are old schools. Ogil view as built in 1935 and New Town in 1952. Enrolment numbers have decreased by 15 percent and 28 percent, respectively, over the past decade and most of the 55 per cent of students enrolled at Ogil vie High School and 40 percent at New Town are from out of area and in the Glen orchy and Brighton municipalities.
Think of the new $30m high school at Brighton and a $20m redevelopment of Cosgrove with just 170 enrolments. Future families will be attending these schools and there will be no reason for them to do otherwise as all schools will be considered coeducational.
The only way for Ogil vie and New Town to increase their enrolment numbers will be to acquire students from four of the nine primary schools currently linked to Taro on a High School.
Schools that will be under pressure to lose that right will be families with children attached to Mt Stuart Primary, Lansdowne Crescent Primary, Goulburn Street Primary and Campbell Street Primary.
They will be re directed north overtime to the Glen orchy Municipality boundary and very few will want this. If they don’ t enrol however a school closure will eventually be required.
The measure of the levels of education and occupation of a student’ s parents is known as the Socio-Educational Advantage( SEA) indicator and Taro on a High sit sat the 87 th percentile nationally— only 13 percent of schools are better placed. It compares with Scotch Oak burn College 87th, Launceston Church Grammar 84 th, Collegiate 93 rd, Hutchins 93 rd and F ah an 93rd.
Riverside High School in Launceston is the state’ s next highest ranked public high school and it has a SEA percentile of just 53.
New Town High sit sat 31 and Ogilvie High at 29. Cos grove High’ s ranking is 4. Families at Brighton don’ t send their children to Jordan River Senior School for this very reason.
There are 60 single-sex public high schools across Australia and they are present in all states and territories.
They exist because for girls in particular, many do better. Think of Collegiate, St Mary’ s, F ah an, Mt Carmel and Hutchins. Why are they not contemplating change and why are we celebrating the fact that Tasmania is about to lose its two?
A new inner city public high school should have been built and an obvious site for consideration is the soon to be vacated U TA S campus in Sandy Bay.
The lack of value our leaders place on public education is clearly shown in the Minister’ s media release where he reasons that the building a new inner-city high school cannot be countenanced because it may result in drawing students away from schools that currently have capacity.
Families would clearly be getting something better and it would seem we can’ t have that. The $20 million spent on Cos grove with 170 students would have been better spent on building an inner-city high school in a central location nearer to where our families a relocated.