Page 2584 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 8 August 1990
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QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
School Closure - Rivett
MS FOLLETT: My question, which is directed to the Minister for Health, Education and the Arts, concerns the imminent closure of the Rivett school. How many of the children who currently attend the Rivett school will transfer to Duffy school and Chapman school? To where will the special needs children at Rivett be relocated?
MR HUMPHRIES: I thank the Leader of the Opposition for her question. The movements of students depend very much on their choice. The Government will not say that students at Rivett must go to Duffy or Chapman or wherever. It will ask the parents where they wish to send their children next year if the Rivett school is not available. On the basis of that preference expressed by parents, the Government will make whatever changes are required in the schools concerned to accommodate them.
It is not the desire of the Government to force students to go to any particular school, although in some cases where particular schools are closed other schools are identified as receiving schools, and arrangements are made to accommodate those students particularly at those schools should they desire accommodation there. In the case, for example, of the Page Primary School closure at the end of 1988, the then Scullin school was identified as the receiving school, but many parents chose not to send their children there. That is their prerogative.
The special education unit at Rivett School will be situated at the most suitable location, depending on a number of factors - - -
Ms Follett: Where?
MR HUMPHRIES: When? Let me answer your question, and I will be happy to tell you that. If you are asking an early supplementary question, I will answer that now. They will be relocated, almost certainly, at the same time as the school is closed.
Mr Moore: Not when, where?
MR HUMPHRIES: That is a question for the people who use the centre to indicate.
Ms Follett: You don't know, and you don't care.
MR HUMPHRIES: I do not know because I think the interests and the wishes of the people at that school should be the determining factor. If they indicate that they wish to be relocated to Duffy school, for example, and if Duffy school is prepared to accept them, the Government will give serious consideration to relocating them to Duffy. We will not force square pegs into round holes and, if a particular
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