Education ultimate goal for Ultimo School Inquiry

BY CHRISTOPHER HARRIS

An inquiry into the state government’s botched plans for a new school at Ultimo began last Wednesday.

Local community leaders and politicians have welcomed the beginning of the review, saying it could shine a light on the goings on within the NSW Department of Education.

Convenor of the Pyrmont Ultimo Education Committee Mary Mortimor AO welcomed the plan. She said it would show parents from Pyrmont and Ultimo and throughout the state how the Department of Education was failing in their statuatory duty to provide education spots for students.

She said she suspected that the cost of a new school could have been paid for already if the costs of consulants fees and failed starts were added up.

“We think it will. We can’t get any dollar figures from the department. The initial investigation from the department didn’t name any figures, and in the documents we got from Freedom of Information requests, every dollar amount has been redacted, there is no financial information about anything.”

Greens Spokesperson for Education David Shoebridge said that the Department needed to revisit the possibility of decontaminating the Wattle Street Depot site in order to build a new school.

“We need to revisit the Fig and Wattle site and see what can be done to break the impasse between the City of Sydney and the Baird Government to deliver the best outcome for public education.

“We have spoken to many parents in the Ultimo Public School community who have real concerns about their children spending their primary school years in a stop-gap, demountable facility,” Mr Shoebridge said.

Greens Member for Balmain Jamie Parker said there were serious concerns about the school in the community.

“Children and their educational outcomes should be at the heart of decision making, yet here they have run a clear second place to cutting costs.

“The ultimate goal here is a school that meets the needs of the community,” Mr Parker said.

“This inquiry is an opportunity for school parents to get some answers about how it has come to this, and what needs to be done to deliver quality public education in the city.

Mary Mortimer told City Hub that the inquiry would reveal the lack of planning within the department.

“With all the extra development happening in Sydney, there are no plans for a school in Haymarket, there are no plans for the extra development in the inner city, it is vital it looks at all of the schools in the inner city, and do the work the Department of Education should be doing, and work out the number of school places that are needed.”

She said there had been a systematic failing of the Department, as had been revealed by Parents and Community groups on the North Shore previously.

“The largest Department of Education in the world doesn’t have demographers, it has ex teachers or ordinary public servants doing the demographics. The study that was done in the northern suburbs, led by Stephanie Croft, established how faulty the department’s demographic predictions were, and it is exactly the same here in the inner city.”

Submissions to the inquiry close on September 18.