Shadow Minister for Education Tim Smith was joined by  Member for Ripon Louise Staley Thursday at the college to pledge $4 million for capital upgrades to the school if the Liberal Nationals government is elected.

The project would fund an upgrade of the school’s STEM facilities, as well as the development of a college auditorium.

The announcement followed the Liberal Nationals commitment of $400 million for capital upgrades to non-government schools.

Mr Smith said the aim of the project was in part to close the gap between rural and metropolitan education.

“We think it’s a really important contribution to Ararat, but also to closing the gap between education outcomes in rural Victoria and the city. (It’s) also around school choice,” he said.

“We believe in all three sectors of the education system, whether it be Catholic, Independent or public, and this is a low fee Catholic school that’s doing a wonderful job in the local area. We’re really delighted to support the school should we win the election.”

College principal Carmel Barker said the upgrades would improve the way the school delivers the STEM curriculum.

“It will better support the whole idea of collaboration and working across curriculum between that science, maths and technology areas because it’s about bringing the kids to real life examples of ‘how do you use this’, and making maths and science relevant,” she said.

“The kids are getting passionate about that when they can see it achieve something. So it’s about bringing those centres together and providing that space that you can open up and integrate and create.

“A lot of the future – robotics and computer studies – fit in so well with the maths and the science. It allows that passion to grow. We know the kids have passion here.”

Interest in the STEM fields is growing and Ms Barker said the school will have to put on more maths classes next year to cater for it. 

An example of the growing interest could be seen in year seven students Emily and Ruby, who have coded their own game. 

“This is a Sphero. We code a game onto it – it’s called a toss game,” said Emily.

“When you throw the ball it will make a sound and then you have to guess what the sound is. If you get it wrong it will flash red, if you get it right it will flash green.”

Both students said that they enjoy the creativity involved in coding and they were more aware of their career options as a result of the focus on STEM in their classes. 

Their enthusiasm and the enthusiasm of their peers led Ms Barker and Ms Staley to discuss potential projects for the school should the Coalition be elected, Ms Staley said. 

“I started talking to the school about potential projects that were ready to be funded out of the $400 million for capital announcement we’ve made for Catholic and Independent schools – this project that came to the forefront and so we’re all about making sure the projects are driven by the schools, not driven by us,” she said.

“Marian knows what it needs.”

Mr Smith agreed.

“It’s very much needs based. It’s driven by the school and by Catholic Ed – and these are exactly the sorts of schools which are relatively small rural schools, low fee, these are the sorts of schools that the Liberals are absolutely passionate about supporting,” he said.