The Victorian Labour Government loves claiming that they don’t close schools, that they leave it up to the School communities (and more to the point) the School Councils to decide the fate of there schools! For those of you that have been through the process know, that although there is elements of truth to the story, the part of the story the forget to tell is that they have made the decisions behind the scenes and do everything in there power to make sure the out comes that they want are achieved and that the School Councils are the ones the when left with out any other decision, have to do the actual vote to close the school and therefor wear the blame (and thats what the government and education department do, blame the school council) for the rest of time, with the Government trying to wash their hands of the issue and remain clean so that they can bash the Liberal party and Jeff Kennett about the number of schools they closed.

Now I know some schools are probably redundant and that money can be spent better on one bigger school rather then two small schools, but my argument and goal is to have the State Government and the Education department to live up too their responsibility and own the decision to have schools close or merge (notice I didn’t say to make the decision? That’s because there already making the decision, they are just hiding behind the school councils to own the decision).

Now your school might not have been involved in a school merger and you might say, why do I care. With all the extra work and discussions that are taking place, it has to be more expensive to try to have the school councils talked/forced in to the decision then it is to just make the decision and live with the political backlash that might come!

So I will write more on the site in the coming weeks (assuming that there isn’t an about face by the government) but in the mean time, if you have been through the Building Futures program and been part of a school that has merged because of it and you have some stories to tell about the tactics and the process, either leave a comment below or email me at mollyfud@gmail.com.

Lets see if we can get the Government to come clean and be strong on an issue for once, instead of spending there time commenting on TV shows and Celebrities as they seem to be at the present time!