Box Hill Schools to Receive Major Maintenance Funding

11 November, 1998

Box Hill Senior Secondary College and Box Hill North Primary School are to receive major maintenance grants totalling $504,680 as part of a $70 million statewide school upgrade project announced this week by the State Government.

Altogether, schools in the Box Hill electorate are to receive $535,417.

Other schools to receive funds are Balwyn Primary School ($16,236), Chatham Primary School ($8,767) and Koonung Secondary College ($5,734).

The school upgrade project is a further step in the Government’s 1996 election commitment to expend $1,000 million over four years on school construction and upgrades and to further reduce the $670 million school maintenance backlog which it inherited.

The maintenance backlog had been reduced to $275 million by last year, and is expected to be further reduced to less than $190 million by the end of 1998-99.

The announcement of the funding has been welcomed by the Member for Box Hill, Mr Robert Clark.

"Following the recent inclusion of Mont Albert Primary School in the capital works planning program, the funding for Box Hill Senior Secondary College means that all seven Government primary schools and three Government secondary schools in the Box Hill electorate will have received either new works or an extensive maintenance grant since 1992 or be in new premises," Mr Clark said.

"This is another illustration of how the benefits of the Government’s reforms are flowing through to better services and facilities at a local level."

The news comes on top of the recent announcements that that 87 teachers in the Box Hill electorate will be amongst the first to receive laptop computers as part of a $100 million Government project to expand the use of information technology and multimedia in schools, and that School Global Budgets for schools in the electorate are to rise by an average of 8.9% in 1999.