Surf Coast Times
Tuesday 24 May 2011
VOL 9. No 21
www.surfcoasttimes.com.au
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Jan Juc photographer Glen Barton has been snapped up to feature in a Melbourne exhibition. His work That chair, a country road and a woman in a floral dress and red boots was chosen as the face of The Butterfly Effect, an emerging artists exhibition currently on display in Melbourne. See full story page 6.
TRADE SCHOOL Cheeseman encourages planned Torquay high school to be trade friendly
BY NATHAN HALE FEDERAL Member for Corangamite, Darren Cheeseman, is pushing for Torquay’s impending high school to have state-of-the-art trades training facilities. With a standalone high school set to be built in Torquay north, the timing is ideal, Cheeseman said, to ensure the school is equipped with training facilities for students. Cheeseman said for too long now little has been done in the region to offer students the opportunity to gain vital trades experience. Now, with the new school pencilled in, he said the chance to ensure the working future of a number
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of teenagers was a chance too good not to take advantage of. “The Federal Government has a rolling 10-year National Trades Training in Schools Fund which is available for schools to apply for funding for trades training facilities in schools,” he said. “I have been urging the regional education office and the State Government for some years now to make an application on behalf of local high schools. “This has not as yet happened but now we have a golden opportunity if the Victorian Government is going to build a new high school in Torquay.” Cheeseman said with the shire acknowledged as the fastest growing municipality in the state, the
chance to offer trades training at high school could ensure a strong local workforce in years to come. “This region is undergoing a very significant growth period both in terms of domestic building and commercial building,” he said. “There is a chronic trades skills shortage which is one of the factors driving up house prices, and this is an opportunity to address that. “In addition, demand is increasing in the tourism sector for trade skills training, so there should also be facilities and courses in the hospitality services available in the new high school. “As we know, a trade can give a young person a job for life, something they can earn a good living from with pretty secure employment.
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“I would like to see better trades training facilities built in not just Torquay, but also in schools like Grovedale, Oberon and Belmont High and the national fund allows joint school applications. “The fact is that we are now a major growth corridor. There is going to be 22,000 new homes built in Armstrong Creek over the coming decades. “If we offer training in the traditional trades at places like Torquay, this gives local kids the chance to train in their local community and then they will be able to work in the local community for the next couple of decades.” Torquay College principal, Pam Kinsman, is currently on leave and the school could not make comment on any proposed application.
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