Adelaide Botanic High upgrade may not be ready for start of 2024 school year

Construction delays at Adelaide Botanic High could mean some students cannot return to campus to start lessons in 2024.

Year 11 and 12 students at Adelaide Botanic High may not be able to return to their campus for the start of the next school year because of construction delays.

Education Minister Blair Boyer has confirmed a $98m expansion of the city secondary school, featuring a new multistorey building, may not be complete by February as planned.

Mr Boyer said the government has been making contingency plans for where to send students if the building is not ready by the start of Term 1, 2024.

“There is a possibility that we will be delayed. What that delay will be is not exactly clear at this point,” he told parliament under questioning on Wednesday.

“I’ll have clarity on that, I hope, later this year.

“We are working on contingency plans around if we have to accommodate students somewhere else until the build is complete.

“I am confident that soon we will have a CBD location that is an educational institution locked in, should we need it, for Year 11 and 12 students to spend some time there, should they need to, until the build is complete.

“I remain hopeful that we can catch up some time. Should that not happen we are very well advanced in having something appropriate and fit for purpose for senior students.”

An artist’s impression of the Adelaide Botanic High School expansion.

The $98m expansion was first announced by the former Liberal government in January 2022.

Mr Boyer on Wednesday said the upgrade was set an “ambitious timeline from the start” and completion by February, as first planned, “will be very tight”.

It is understood wet weather has delayed construction works.

A land swap agreement between the Adelaide City Council and state government to allow for the expansion to go ahead was also delayed in 2022.

It was eventually agreed to swap a 1.8ha parcel of parklands on Frome Rd for the government-controlled Helen Mayo Park, on the River Torrens.

Education Minister Blair Boyer. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Naomi Jellicoe

Last year students at Morialta Secondary College were also sent off-campus when construction of an expansion at that school was delayed last year.

Construction was hampered by prolonged wet weather, forcing the temporary relocation of students to UniSA’s nearby Magill campus.

Opposition education spokesman John Gardner said in that case students were relocated for four weeks and “you never had a situation where the school students were on the university campus when it was being overrun with adult university students”.

Mr Gardner said he suspected Adelaide Botanic High students would be relocated to a university campus in the city if they could not return to school at the start of Term 1.

“The particular concern I have is that the minister gave no timeframe for when he expects the (Botanic High) build will be complete,” he said.

Under questioning from Mr Gardner Mr Boyer said the contingency plan being considered would “not be impacted by university students coming back”.

The Botanic High expansion features a multistorey building on the southern side of the existing school on Frome Rd, with flexible learning spaces and specialist facilities.

It will add capacity for another 700 students, taking the schools total capacity to 1950.

Adelaide Botanic High opened in 2019 to Year 8 and 9 students.

It has added a year level annually since and the first year 12 classes were taught in 2022.

It also took in 215 Year 7 students in 2022 as that year level moved into high schools statewide.