Calls for new facilities as Greater Hobart’s primary schools are reaching capacity

Many of greater Hobart’s primary schools are bursting at the seams and a range of options have been proposed to ease the squeeze.

CONSIDERATION of a new primary school for the Kingborough region, expanding an existing school or making single sex schools co-educational are some of the ideas being put forward to try deal with greater Hobart’s population growth as schools reach capacity.

Demographer Lisa Denny said it has been known for years many primary schools have been at capacity, particularly on Hobart’s western shore.

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Dr Denny cited the report of the Auditor-General from 2015 which found on trend over the 10 years prior, public primary schools in Hobart and Kingborough were likely to exceed 90 per cent capacity by 2018.

“Since the A-G’s report, we’ve actually had much greater levels of population growth and class sizes are on average more than what the Auditor-General used in his methodology. It’s likely we have more primary schools at capacity than predicted,” she said.

“We don’t have an integrated planning system in terms of where our housing is going to be, let alone where our schooling is going to be so until we start looking at where our population is and what its needs are at a broad level we can look at it from a schooling level.

“When you look at the growth of schools as reported in the Mercury — I noticed both Ogilvie and New Town have declined over the last five years. They’re both single sex schools — does that indicate parents don’t want to send their children to a single sex school? If we were to consider making them co-ed, would that alleviate pressure on places like Taroona? These are questions that need to be considered now.”

Demographer Lisa Denny says Hobart has more primary schools at capacity than predicted in a 2015 report. Picture: MATT THOMPSON

Kingborough Mayor Dean Winter said he had looked into enrolment numbers in the region’s schools recently in relation to the rezoning of land at Huntingfield.

“Anecdotally, our public primary schools are almost all full and there’s no plan for new capacity with continued growth,” he said.

“Our expectation is that existing schools with capacity to take more students are supported to do that. I know that will be difficult in some cases and so consideration of a new primary school may be required.”

In the region last year, St Aloysius Catholic College in Huntingfield had 832 students, Margate Primary had 453 and Illawarra Primary School in Blackmans Bay had 430.

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Education Minister Jeremy Rockliff said the State Government was committed to employing an extra 250 teachers across the state over the next six years, including literacy and numeracy coaches.

“We understand the Kingborough municipality is a growth area and we are responding through investments to expand Illawarra Primary School, Margate Primary School and Taroona High School to meet future demand,” he said.

“The Government is making the largest state investment in school infrastructure in 20 years to respond to growth, and is extending every high school in the state to Year 12.”