By CASEY NEILL
MP’s college cash promise falls flat…
KEYSBOROUGH College was short-changed $10 million in last week’s State Budget.
But Keysborough MP Martin Pakula assured the community he would make good on his $11.5 million pre-election pledge within the next three years.
The Noble Park, Lyndale and Dandenong high schools and Keysborough’s Chandler Park Primary School shared $15.5 million in a budget boost for education.
But Keysborough was allocated just $1.5 million and the remaining $10 million pledged did not appear in budget projections.
Heather Lindsay retired as college principal late last year.
She had lobbied for $30 million to complete a redevelopment that started more than five years ago when four schools merged.
She said last week’s budget was “disappointing for the school”.
“It’s encouraging that there’s at least some funding there. In the past few years there’s been nothing,” she said.
“It’s disappointing that the full amount hasn’t come through, particularly as it was promised and we had (Premier) Dan Andrews and (Education Minister) James Merlino and Martin Pakula all come to the school last year, in person to make that promise.”
Before the election Mr Andrews said that “if you have half a school, you only have half an education” and Mr Pakula said parents deserved certainty.
Current principal John Baston said Mr Pakula had assured him three weeks ago that the full amount would be delivered in the government’s first term.
“We’re perfectly confident that we’ll have the money,” he said.
Mr Baston commended the government’s commitment to fund as many schools as possible.
“We’ll use that money for the critical planning and design work,” he said.
“We’ve got some fantastic facilities here. We’ve also got some that need significant refurbishing.”
Noble Park Secondary College principal Pam Dyson was delighted with its $5 million windfall, a pre-election commitment announced last September.
“We haven’t received any funding for a very long time,” she said.
“I’m glad that we’ve been prioritised.”
Ms Dyson said the upgrades would follow the school’s philosophy of personalised learning and that a senior school centre was one suggestion being considered.
“We have built a flexible learning centre with our own money, for the juniors. The seniors haven’t been given anything,” she said.
The school in 2013 opened a new science centre.
“We’ve had a big increase in students wanting to study science because the building has assisted the way the teachers are teaching,” Ms Dyson said.
“This is going to create an opportunity for our students to learn in an optimum way.”
Chandler Park Primary School in Keysborough received $500,000 for architectural planning to finish a merger with Maralinga Primary School which started five years ago.
Lyndale Secondary College received $7 million and Dandenong High School got another $3 million towards completing its merger with the Cleeland and Doveton secondary colleges which started in 2007.
See pages 8 and 16 for more State Budget coverage.
