By Sean Martin-Iverson
PERTH — Hundreds of students from City Beach Senior High School walked out on June 25 to protest a government restructuring plan which would result in schools being closed, merged and downgraded to middle schools (Years 8-10 only). Police were called when 50 students stood along a major road holding placards and soliciting support from motorists.
City Beach SHS is to be merged with Churchlands to create a multi-campus school by the year 2000. Years 11 and 12 will be removed from the City Beach campus. Scarborough, Kewdale, Swanbourne and Hollywood senior high schools are to be closed. Hollywood and Swanbourne will be replaced by a new "super school". Maddington SHS is to be downgraded to a middle school.
The new "super-schools" and campus upgrades, which are meant to balance the closures, are to be financed by selling off the land from the closed schools for private residential developments. Education minister Colin Barnett is relying on the land sales to net $58 million, while the land is valued at just $36.7 million.
At a public meeting organised by the Democratic Socialist Party on June 17, Andrew Pheasant, Australian Education Union branch president and a teacher at Maddington, harshly criticised the "reform". He questioned whether there will be any benefits for students, despite the hype about increasing "choice". The changes are simply cost-cutting measures, he said.