IT’S an unfortunate reflection on the changing make-up of our communities that some of our oldest and most-loved public assets are being sold off.
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The latest example is at Windermere, west of Ballarat, where the community’s almost 160-year-old former primary school looks set to be sold.
The school closed in 2012 and, despite the community expressing its wish for the buildings to be maintained for alternative educational purposes, it is likely to join the long list of similar properties across the state which are now in private hands.
Why are these issues important? It tells us a great deal about what we value.
Yes, a school is a place of learning, but in smaller rural and regional communities it is often so much more. It’s where memories are made. It’s where people meet. It’s where mums and dads socialise.
When a school is closed, something dies in a small town. When it is sold off, the soul departs as well.
It’s also in the small communities where it is most difficult to convince governments of alternative courses of action. The few voices are drowned out in favour of a paper bottom line.
Yuille Park Community College principal Clete Paige, who is one of a group of people proposing the former school be turned into an environmental education centre, expressed the views succinctly and pointedly when talking to The Courier this week:
“We need to maximise resources like this, not sell them off for a short-term gain. The long-term possibilities for education around this site are enormous.”
In a day and age when we lament the loss of community social connectivity and togetherness, government actions such as this only serve to exacerbate the problems.
The small financial windfall the government would receive for selling the property pales in comparison with the human capital which could be built – that’s a given.
What isn’t so clear is how to prepare a convincing model to sustain these facility in small communities.