By CASEY NEILL
KEYSBOROUGH College will receive $11.5 million toward completing its upgrade if Labor wins power in the November state election.
Principal Heather Lindsay last week welcomed the pledge.
“We’re really thrilled,” she said.
“It’s just lovely to have the recognition that the school needs funding and a commitment to continue doing what it started.
“It’s a wonderful way to assure the community that we provide excellent schooling in this area and that we’re meeting their needs.”
The school needs about $30 million to complete a redevelopment that started five years ago.
“We were a school that formed after four schools merged,” Ms Lindsay said.
“We’ve had a significant amount of money promised to us in our master planning.
“We’ve had virtually half of our funding. We’ve completed half the school.
“We’re a school of contrast – we have fantastic new buildings and then we have really poor older buildings.”
Ms Lindsay said the two campuses had rooms that leaked, lacked natural light, were draughty and needed new cabling.
“They’re not really fit for teaching in, and they need replacing,” she said.
The $11.5 million would go toward a theatre, a food technology and hospitality area, and a physical education and sport and recreation area at the college’s Banksia campus.
“On the other site, there’s an area that will be a hospitality and resource area,” Ms Lindsay said.
“There’s potential for community access and use, too.
“We have a lot of students that do hospitality as a vet subject, and food technology, and we’re very limited in our resources at the moment.”
Ms Lindsay said the next stage would be to see whether the State Government would match the commitment.
“Local parents deserve certainty – not just about the future of their community, but the future of their kids,” Lyndhurst MP Martin Pakula said.
Chandler Park Primary School in Keysborough is also waiting for funding, to finish a merger with Maralinga Primary started five years ago.
Dandenong High School principal Susan Ogden said the school again missed out on the $15 million it needed to complete stage four of its merger with the Cleeland and Doveton secondary colleges, started in 2007.
A spokeswoman for Education Minister Martin Dixon said the budget delivered $1.6 billion for education as well as $500 million to build 12 new schools and upgrade more than 70 existing schools.
“The Victorian Coalition Government is balancing the capital and maintenance needs of more than 1500 government schools across Victoria,” she said.
