The Andrews Government will build a dozen new schools as part of a $353 million package aimed at catering to an explosion in student numbers in Victoria's growth areas.
As the state prepares for 90,000 extra students to pack its classrooms over the next five years, the Education Minister said the investment was necessary to prevent schools being "overrun".
The 12 new schools will be built on Melbourne's northern, western and south-eastern fringes, in Seddon in Melbourne's inner-west and in Geelong and Ballarat.
The total cost of the schools will be $283 million, with most to open in 2020.
The Government has committed a further $70 million for work on 16 other previously announced schools, including at Fishermans Bend and a second campus for McKinnon Secondary College in Melbourne's south-east.
The Premier, Daniel Andrews, said his government had spent more than $2.8 billion on new and upgraded schools over the past three years.
"This will take to a total of 70 schools, brand new ones that we have built or are in the process of building since we came to office," he said.
Education Minister James Merlino said the state needed to accommodate 90,000 additional students by 2022.
"If we don't build new schools our schools are just going to be overrun," he said.
| New school | Area | Opening |
|---|---|---|
| Armstrong Creek Primary School | Geelong | 2020 |
| Beveridge West Primary School | Melbourne's north | 2020 |
| Botanic Ridge Primary School | Melbourne's south-east | 2020 |
| Casey Fields (Five Ways) Primary School | Melbourne's south-east | 2020 |
| Clyde North Primary School | Melbourne's south-east | 2020 |
| Craigieburn South Secondary School | Melbourne's north | 2020 |
| Davis Creek Primary School | Melbourne's west | 2020 |
| Footscray Learning Precinct – Seddon Secondary Campus | Melbourne's inner west | 2021 |
| Keysborough South Primary School | Melbourne's south-east | 2020 |
| Lucas Primary School | Ballarat | 2020 |
| Point Cook South Senior Secondary School | Melbourne's west | 2020 |
| Wyndham South (Riverwalk) Primary School | Melbourne's west | 2020 |
School lobby group welcomes move, but calls for federal help
Cate Hall from the community group Our Children Our Schools described the new funding as "impressive", but said the Federal Government should step in to help meet the booming demand.
"We're pretty pleased," she said.
"However it is a daunting task the State Government's got ahead of them, with schools being near the end of their life and needing rebuilding, the huge demand demographically.
"So we are saying that it really is time for the Federal Government to step in and assist [with] funding the public school infrastructure."
Ms Hall said the Government should establish a benchmark indicating the standard of facilities at all schools across the state, and not spend money on private schools until all state schools were up to scratch.
Opposition: Government is investing in new schools, not what happens inside them
The Opposition's education spokesman, Tim Smith, said the Government needed to keep pace with growth, but did not have a plan to manage a future population boom.
"We also need a population plan to take the pressure off these growth zones and start to grow our regional towns and centres, like Ballarat and Bendigo and Geelong, and not continuously pile more people into the outskirts of Melbourne," he said.
Mr Smith said the Government had not been doing enough to lift teaching quality and improve the curriculum.
"The Government can talk all day about new schools, but our standards are going backwards in schools and have been for the past two decades," he said.
"We've got to get serious about maximising our intellectual capacity in Victorian schools, because if we continue as we've been for the last two decades for the next two, then the rest of the world is going to pass us by.
"They've got to get serious about de-cluttering the curriculum, getting back to basics, focusing on literacy and numeracy, which are the absolute cornerstones of improving student outcomes."
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