Deputy Prime Minister inspects BER projects at Port Adelaide schools
Date: 05 May 2010
Minister for Education, Julia Gillard, together with Member for Port Adelaide, Mark Butler visited Pennington Primary School and Nazareth Catholic Community School in Findon to speak to students and staff about new facilities funded under the Federal Government’s Building the Education Revolution.
The Building the Education Revolution is the largest element of the Federal Government’s economic stimulus plan, supporting local jobs while building important school infrastructure for the future.
Pennington Primary has received $2.5 million out of the Primary Schools for the 21st Century element of the BER, which it has used to construct a new gymnasium.
Today the school captains and Principal took Ms Gillard and Mr Butler on a tour of the new gym. They were also showed upgrades to the science lab and arm room which were undertaken as part of the $150,000 grant the school received under the National School Pride component of the BER.
Later on, Ms Gillard and Mr Butler stopped by Nazareth Community College to see their new gym which is being constructed under a $3 million grant from the P21 program.
“Teachers and students in our local schools should be teaching and learning in facilities that are appropriate for the 21st century,” Mr Butler said.
“At last count there were 2,135 projects with 789 schools in South Australia both supporting students and teachers now and investing in the future. It is delivering building projects to all of Australia’s schools while supporting jobs.”
Mr Butler said that includes 148 projects in 56 schools in the Port Adelaide electorate, worth $121 million.
“If it was up to the Liberal Party, none of this money would be flowing to local schools. They voted against it in the Parliament and have threatened to cut it completely if they win the election,” he said.
“I call on the Liberal Party to name the schools on their schools hit list that would miss out on BER funding if they win the election.”
