Three more public schools are on the horizon for Canberra, as the public system braces for an additional 1340 students by 2019.
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The ACT government will spend an extra $10 million on schools in this year's budget, and release land in Gungahlin, West Belconnen and the Molonglo Valley for future school sites.
A $47 million primary school is also slated for Denman Prospect in the growing Molonglo Valley and a site for a non-government school will be put up for auction by 2022 in Wright.
Six hundred new places are set to open up for Gungahlin students in the next four years as the Franklin Early Childhood school expands from year 2 to year 6, and Amaroo, Gold Creek and Neville Bonner schools grow.
Schools in both the north and south would also get a face-lift, with $400,000 set aside next year to design permanent classrooms for Narrabundah College and an upgrade planned for Campbell Primary School's ageing buildings.
Almost $900,000 in the coming year will be spent replacing leaky roofs at schools across the territory, with the most in need triaged to the head of the queue.
Funding for an additional 15 school psychologists, which was notably absent in last year's budget, has been included for the coming year. The government is expecting to fill the positions on time with its previous election committment of 2020.
Teacher ranks will also swell and a new mentoring program is expected to train 120 school leaders a year by 2019.
But on Tuesday, the peak body for ACT parents questioned whether the new budget went far enough to cater to Canberra's growing population.
President of the ACT Council of Parents and Citizens Associations Kirsty McGovern-Hooley welcomed planning for "the minimum requirements to cope with growth" in the budget, but said more needed to be done, particularly in Gungahlin.
“One of the biggest challenges for our schools at the moment is growth,” Ms McGovern-Hooley said, noting facilities such as school halls, playgrounds and carparks also needed to cope with surging enrolments.
The association welcomed a $5.5 million boost in the coming year for students with disabilities that would see more nurses in classrooms to help those with complex health issues, as well as top up needs-based funding.
“[Nurse's] expertise is crucial,” Ms McGovern-Hooley said.
But the association was "disappointed" there was no commitment to fund "other essential expertise in our schools", such as social workers, teacher librarians and pastorial care specialists, she said.
As the Commonwealth pulls out of national funding agreements on childcare regulation, the ACT government has also unveiled $1.5 million to develop a new early childhood strategy, focussing on cost equity for families as well as beefing up staff numbers at the territory's regulator, CECA.
