Adjournment - School upgrades in Ripon

31 July 2024

"My adjournment matter is for the attention of the Minister for Education. The action I seek is that the minister visits my electorate to see some of the amazing school upgrades currently taking place across our rural communities. I am lucky enough to have 54 schools in my electorate. Some have as few as three students and others have over 1000. All of them are staffed by some of the most fantastic principals, teachers and support staff you could ever meet. I am proud we are making so many of them even better with the doctors in schools program, mental health supports, equity funding, free dental vans, school upgrades and more.We have recently finished upgrade works on many, including a $4.1 million upgrade to Skipton Primary School, a $1.9 million upgrade to Linton Primary School and a multimillion-dollar upgrade to the Ross Creek and Smythesdale campuses of Woady Yaloak Primary School, but there is so much more still to come. We are transforming St Arnaud Secondary College, Mount Rowan Secondary College and Wedderburn College; upgrading classrooms at Ararat College; redeveloping Tarnagulla Primary School; and improving our amazing Catholic schools in Ararat, Inglewood and St Arnaud. We will also complete work soon on school upgrades in Snake Valley and Scarsdale and build new outdoor sheltered areas at Dunolly and Little Bendigo primary schools. That is not even the full list, but it is safe to say that we are getting on with making sure our kids have the very best school facilities no matter where they live. I welcome the chance to show off some of the work to the minister and introduce him to the amazing school communities across Ripon."