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Ingram Chairs Meeting For Major Education Precinct

The first step towards developing a major education precinct in Bairnsdale was taken this week.

By Craig Ingram - 30th March 2009 - Back to News

The Independent Member for Gippsland East, Craig Ingram, chaired a meeting on Wednesday, which included representatives from various education sectors, local government and the Department of Education.

Mr Ingram said the idea was formed by the urgent upgrade needed of facilities at Bairnsdale Secondary College and has now grown to investigate the possible consolidation of local education providers in one large precinct.

"Bairnsdale Secondary College and the Bairnsdale Aquatic and Recreation Centre are located on 93 acres bounded by Wallace, McKean, Calvert and Victoria streets," Mr Ingram said.

"Westdale Kindergarten and the East Gippsland Specialist School are also already located on this land, and TAFE has a number of buildings already located on the large site.

"The purpose of the discussions was to establish the requirements of current education providers such as kindergartens, primary, secondary, TAFE, Community College East Gippsland (formerly BACE) and East Gippsland Specialist School, with a view to consolidating their needs in new facilities located in the one precinct. There were also discussions about some facilities being made available for use by community groups.

"Many of our current education providers in Bairnsdale are located in buildings that are in need of major renovation.

"A precinct would provide the opportunity to move to new buildings and the size of the proposed site means that these groups can still maintain their separate identities.

Mr Ingram stressed that this weeks meeting was the first of many steps.

"While this vision may be unique to Bairnsdale, there are various models operating in the state that demonstrate that a project of this type does work," he said.

A further meeting will be held next month with the idea of interested parties entering into a partnership agreement to move forward on the project," Mr Ingram concluded.

Source: http://gippsland.com/

Published by: news@gippsland.com

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