By Chris Slee

MELBOURNE -- On January 17, only a week before the start of the school term, the Directorate of School Education finally announced some details on the proposed Richmond coeducational facility.

The announcement was made nearly a month after pickets on the former Richmond Secondary College site, now converted into the elite Melbourne Girls College, were called off following an agreement with the government that a coeducational facility would be established in Richmond. This was to be an annexe to a school in another suburb, rather than a school in its own right.

This deal was reluctantly accepted by campaigners for the reopening of the Richmond Secondary College, under pressure from the Trades Hall Council, which said it would no longer support the pickets.

The agreement was extremely vague, and the government kept on fobbing off questions about the site, staffing, subjects to be offered, the host school to which the annexe would be attached and similar details.

These delaying tactics can only be seen as a deliberate attempt to sabotage the annexe. Prospective students and their parents would obviously be reluctant to enrol in the facility when they did not know such crucial details as the subjects to be offered.

The January 17 announcement specified the site (an annexe to the former Richmond Girls Secondary College), the host school (Collingwood Secondary College) and the staffing formula. However, the subjects remain to be negotiated between the students and the principal of Collingwood Secondary College.

Despite their anger at the government's delaying tactics and their dissatisfaction with the outcome, members of FORCE (Friends of Richmond Coeducation -- formerly Friends of Richmond Secondary College) voted to work with the DSE's proposal as a starting point, while continuing to campaign for better facilities for the annexe.

A proposal to reimpose the pickets on the former Richmond Secondary College site was defeated.

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