Two Wells Primary School

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (15:22): My question is to the Minister for Education, Training and Skills. Can the minister advise the house how the Malinauskas Labor government is ensuring that Two Wells Primary School can cater for the growing education needs of the Adelaide Plains?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills) (15:22): I thank the member for Light for his fantastic question and it was an absolute thrill, I must say, to join him and the Premier at Two Wells Primary School on Thursday of last week to announce a $10 million upgrade for that school. I have to say that this is one of the absolute thrills of the job that I do, when I go out to schools like Two Wells, who haven't had very much investment at all over a very sustained period but have nonetheless been offering an incredible quality of teaching and learning there despite the physical infrastructure they have been coping with and managing across that time.

We know we have a number of schools in that category, but we are making the investment we need to make sure we have the learning facilities for young people, not just now in the Two Wells area, but also into the future, because we know it is a rapidly growing area. In fact, I think the number of five year olds forecast to be living in the catchment area over the next 10 years is going to see incredible growth. This is a really important investment now in terms of making sure the young people who will be going to Two Wells Primary School in the next couple of years get a really high-quality education in modern fit-for-purpose facilities, but also making sure that we can actually cater for future growth as well.

Two Wells Primary School was originally established in 1865, but moved to its existing location in 1979. I have to say that there was not a great deal of school stock we were building in the 1970s that has really stood the test of time. It's not going to win any architectural design awards. The Premier, the member for Light and I had the opportunity to join the principal there, Kirsty Brumby, and meet some of the young students and the staff and see the classrooms they were using that were put in place back in 1979 but were actually never intended to still be in use in 2025.

I often comment that, although it is absolutely true that the biggest assets any education system is ever going to have are our teachers and our leaders and our staff, I think there is a case to be made that investment in school infrastructure and new classrooms and the technology that fills those classrooms is more important now than it has ever been. The anecdote I have told in this place before about my own schooling is of going to a small country primary school that was the same classroom that my father and grandfather were educated in that didn't change really at all across those 70 years.

Of course, the rate of change we have seen with technology since I left primary school to now means that really we have to make sure our classrooms and our schools can cater for the skills and capabilities we want to give young people to make sure they can work in future industries and the jobs of today. We have things like 3D printers, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and all those kinds of things that are just commonplace now in our lives. They are commonplace in the workplace and we need to make sure that at our schools, including at Two Wells, our young people have access to those facilities.

It was a really exciting occasion to spend with the member for Light and the Premier, to see the joy that it brought the staff who had worked there for many years who had been really hoping for an announcement like this. It was fantastic. I look forward to working with the school now in terms of the planning and design phase. We have to make sure that not only do we replace those outdated classrooms but we give the school an opportunity to really play a role in designing what they want their school to look like into the future.