A NEW study estimates Wimmera and Mallee student numbers will drop up to 31 per cent in the next decade.
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The study recommends up to 220 new schools would need to be built in Victoria in the period to cope with rising student numbers, mainly in inner-city suburbs.
However Horsham is the only Wimmera municipality where student numbers are forecast to grow, by 0.1 per cent.
Ararat student numbers are tipped to drop 1.5 per cent, while Buloke has the highest decline rate at 31.3 per cent.
Australian Education Union Victorian branch president Meredith Peace said portable classrooms were being shifted across the state at an unprecedented and unacceptable rate to cope with rising numbers.
Some Wimmera classrooms have been relocated to city areas.
Stawell Secondary College principal Nick Lynch said governments had a responsibility to provide for all schools.
He said the federal government’s decision to axe the final two years of the Gonski education plan was disappointing.
“Gonski funding would have made postcodes irrelevant, and all schools would have received equitable funding,” he said.
“This model is not being seen through to completion by the federal government.”
Mr Lynch said it was important Wimmera classrooms were well-maintained and schools upgraded where needed to ensure their suitability for 21st Century learning.
“The total stock of teaching spaces is important, but so is the maintenance of the existing stock,” he said.
Edenhope College principal Robyn Hollis said the school lost two of its portable classrooms last year.
“Fortunately for us we were able to absorb that loss,” she said.
“Of course schools always like to have plenty of space available to run breakout spaces and specialist-type rooms, however other schools will be in a position of really needing some of those portables.”