Rebuilding quality education for our children

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WARREN KIRBY

WHEN I was elected as the member for Riverstone in 2023, our community was the fastest growing part of Sydney, with the largest portion of young people in the state.

Yet despite this tremendous growth, there was a debilitating lack of critical infrastructure to support our children’s education. Schools were overflowing, with our kids being forced into demountables.

In addition, the previous Liberal Government enforced an unfair wage cap on our teachers, further hurting our children’s education. ICAC has found that under the former Liberal Government’s watch, school funding was deliberately diverted from our area by manipulating statistics, gaslighting the community, ignoring data and mismanaging funds, leaving schools in the North-West in despair.

But under the NWW Government, we’re changing that. In three years, we’ve announced a $9B investment in critical schools’ infrastructure, including right here in Riverstone.

With Riverstone having the most amount of young people in NSW, it’s crucial we get this right. That’s why we’ve lifted the unfair wages cap on essential services, making sure our teachers are paid fairly.

In our community we’ve delivered upgrades to Riverbank and Schofields Public School, getting students out of demountables and into permanent classrooms.

Just last month, we continued to improve our education system with the opening of Tallawong Public School. Alongside Premier Chris Minns, Education Minister Pru Carr and the Federal Member for Greenway Michelle Rowland, I had the privilege of welcoming parents and students into their permanent classroom.

But we’ve got more on the way. I’m pleased to announce that Nirimba Fields Public School is under construction and is on the way.

This facility will have modern classrooms for up to 1,000 students, alongside support learning classrooms.

Furthermore, as part of the Government’s commitment to expand early learning access, the school will also include an on-site public preschool.

As part of the $9B investment, we’ve committed to delivering capacity for 15,000 additional students by 2028 and replacing more than 160 demountables with over 700 permanent classrooms. With the new Grantham Farm Public School and Preschool on the way.

Of course, there’s more to do. But working with Premier Minns, we’ll get on with the job of rebuilding the public school system in Riverstone and our community.

Warren Kirby is NSW Member for Riverstone.

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