Save Our Schools reports that the 2011–2012 ACT Budget has confirmed what we all have known for a long time—the 2006 mass school closures was a failed policy based on false assumptions and dodgy data.

Only five years after closing 23 schools, downgrading four others, and amalgamating many more, the ACT Government now intends to spend $15.3 million to expand existing schools to accommodate growing enrolments. Some $5.6 million is allocated to expand Macgregor Primary School, $4.4 million to expand Majura Primary School, and $5.3 million to expand Red Hill Primary School (last year’s budget) — all areas where schools have been closed in the past.

These expansions are a change of policy by the ACT Government. They indicate that the Government has returned to a policy of meeting local demand for neighbourhood schools. They also indicate that the Government is now prepared to expand schools in regions with excess capacity—previously it only wanted to close schools in such cases.

Those who lost access to a local school over the past five years can only feel cheated.

The issue is wider than an abstract planning question. The impacts of closing schools are real, and they continue to come at a high cost to families and communities with no local, neighbourhood school. Even though the decision was made in 2006, the repercussions are still current for those communities who were affected.

Read more at: http://www.saveourschools.com.au/school-closures/act-government-policy-backflip-on-school-planning