Today the PSA attended a briefing with the Minister of Education where it was announced that a number of capital works initiatives were to be funded, providing improved facilities for South Australian students.

$134m has been allocated for building 6 new schools in Playford/Smithfield Plains, Enfield/Gilles Plains and Woodville Gardens/Mansfield Park. It is proposed that the new schools will be built through a Private/Public partnership in the same way as new Police Stations were built across the State. Private/Public partnerships are not supported by the PSA. These arrangements take money from the public sector, clearly having to provide profits for private investors. The PSA will continue to lobby Government to keep public money in public hands.

Decisions regarding the new schools will be made in consultation with the school communities in these areas. It is anticipated that the seventeen existing sites will close and move into the 6 new facilities. However, if schools in these areas choose not to close then other areas will be offered the new school.

In addition to the building of new schools, $82m has been identified to reinvest in current schools. Schools across the state will be consulted about whether or not they could provided better services by amalgamating with other sites or working with other sites in a new way. The savings achieved will be reinvested in these schools sites.

$24.8m has been identified for provide for ten trade schools and $23.3m for Children's Centres. In addition $45m has been allocated for capital works programs.

The Government has recognised that it is important to build new schools as 75% of buildings are more than 25 years old and require considerable maintenance. There is also the added difficulty of changing demographics which has resulted in schools built to cater for over 1,000 students now only having 250 students enrolled.

The Minister provided assurances that the communities and unions would be fully consulted in the development of these initiatives and unions would have input into the decision making process in regard to changes to staffing arrangements.

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