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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-10-19 Daily Xml
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Geranium Primary School Site

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (14:41): My question is to the Minister for Education. Can the minister provide an update to the house about the Geranium Primary School? Mr Speaker, with your leave, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr McBRIDE: The Geranium community have been very active and vocal in their desire for the old school site to be retained for community use for the benefit of the town and surrounding areas.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills) (14:42): Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The minister has the call.

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Heysen, order!

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: I love all your schools—yours too, member for Chaffey. I am very pleased to have this question from the member for MacKillop about Geranium Primary School. For those in the chamber who may not be aware, services at the Geranium Primary School were actually suspended in September 2022 because there were no enrolments there and no students enrolled at all for the start of term 3.

Sadly, this is something that happens from time to time and it leaves communities and government as well with some very difficult decisions to make around what we do going forward around making sure there are education opportunities for the people living in those communities and around those communities but also what the education department actually does with the asset.

A ministerial review committee was established in November—that's the usual practice when a school essentially has zero enrolments—and, as part of that, the Geranium Forward Society, which is a group of local community members which had some very strong advocacy from the member for MacKillop, put a proposal to me as the minister through the member and the education department around what they could do to band together to try to keep the assets there at the school, and there are considerable assets at Geranium Primary School that are actually in pretty good condition as well for the local community.

I know members in this place would agree with me when I say it is very sad when you see small regional communities lose important infrastructure like schools. We know what it means in terms of the area's ability to attract other people to come and live there. As someone who grew up in a very small farming community of about 200 people, I completely understand the desire of people in that area to want to do everything they can to keep those assets in their hands.

I am pleased to advise the house that I travelled to Geranium in June this year and met the member for MacKillop and representatives from both the Geranium Forward Society and the local council to talk around what their vision for the site was.

The infrastructure I mentioned a moment ago includes a swimming pool, oval, multiple playgrounds, tennis and basketball courts and a standalone kindergarten as well. It is one of the very unfortunate things in the role that I have that it seems to happen quite regularly that schools running short on enrolments and facing the proposition of closing are sometimes those schools that have infrastructure in very good condition and sometimes those schools in regional areas that are growing quite quickly have infrastructure that needs upgrading. So I am glad and pleased to be able to tell the house today that we struck an agreement with the Geranium Forward Society around keeping those assets that I mentioned operational and having them in the hands of the local community.

They have some very grand plans for what they want to do with them, which is great, and we will do what we can as a government, and of course the education department will do what it can, to support the local community to make it work. They are talking about bushwalking, outdoor education, sustainable farming education, the establishment of a playgroup and play cafe and using the library and the gymnasium still, along with ongoing maintenance of the swimming pool so it can still be used in the summer months for recreation and also, really importantly, particularly in small regional communities, for swimming lessons to make sure that young people in that area still have a place close to home to learn how to swim safely.

I will finish by thanking the member for MacKillop again. I would like to say that I think I have proven my sincerity over the first 18 months in this job that I will work with members on the other side, particularly in regional parts of the state, to try to do what I can to try to help with your schools and keep schools like Germanium Primary School either open or, at the very least, in the hands of the local community.

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