Returning a high school to the Yarraville area would be back on the agenda under a Labor government, according to opposition education spokesman James Merlino.
Mr Merlino yesterday criticised the government for failing to discuss the issue with the SKYHigh group, which has been trying to meet Education Minister Martin Dixon since the 2010 election.
“It has never been in the DNA of a Liberal government to invest in education, so the lack of engagement from Minister Dixon with SKYHigh is not surprising,” he said.
“Unfortunately, over the past three years, the Napthine government has simply ignored all requests from the community to discuss options for a new secondary school facility in the SKY [Seddon, Kingville, Yarraville] area.”
SKYHigh staged a march in Yarraville on Sunday to mark 10 years of pushing for a high school to replace Footscray-Yarraville High School, closed by the Kennett government in 1996.
Group president Melissa Horne said more than 200 parents and children joined the anniversary march. “Our community lost a valued high school in the 1990s and we want it back,” she said.
“I encourage any parents to follow us on Facebook or Twitter today and find out what we can do together to convince our politicians to build our kids a new school.”
Mr Merlino joined the rally, as did Williamstown MP Wade Noonan and Footscray MP Marsha Thomson.
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Mr Noonan said the high numbers of students entering local primary schools made it time to kickstart the secondary school discussion.
“My clear pledge as the local member is to work with local residents, schools and interested stakeholders to examine all options to access secondary education in the inner west,” he said.
Last month, the Weekly reported Bayside College principal Andrew Harnett as saying his school had enough space to deal with an increasing student population.
Ms Thomson said existing secondary schools would be included in any discussions.
Meanwhile, federal Gellibrand MP Tim Watts said the federal government’s announced scrapping of the Gonski reforms, since partly reversed, put at risk millions of dollars in extra funding to western suburbs schools.
“Thanks to the needs-based funding model implemented by Labor and agreed with the states, the schools in Gellibrand who need the most support to help their students succeed received the biggest increases in funding,” Mr Watts said.
“During the election campaign, Tony Abbott said, ‘We will honour the agreements that Labor has entered into’, yet now that the Liberals are in government they are tearing up this commitment to the Australian people.”
