Who do you trust to look after and safeguard this farm and green space in the future? Read more to see SHEAP's recommended win-win response after hearing all the experts and views. This response largely reflects our constructive interim response of December:
In considering the Hurlstone Inquiry Report, we ask members of the community to consider who they trust more to be the future custodian of this important farm, heritage and local green space - under a new, exciting and better resourced model that will require passion for agriculture and education to succeed. Do you trust: a. The education bureaucracy who have tried 3 times in 30 years to sell the very same land and who is criticised in the Report as not understanding agricultural education? Or, b. The school that has been a proud custodian of that land and has managed to keep it going despite an estimated $14 milion under investment by the very DET that wants to grab direct control? We urge your support for our response that takes all the elements of the Vision in the Report but has better integration, allows increased broader access and use and puts those who genuinely care about the land and agricultural education in charge. The proposal to split the farm from the school and put the bureaucracy in charge of running it, is a recipe for failure and the major blockage to getting agreement and getting on with the future. SHEAP's responses to the Inquiry suggestions are: - The community argument against the sale of the farm has prevailed and the DET and the Government have been proven wrong.
- The Inquiry supports the overwhelming evidence of SHEAP, experts and the community that the school needed more land and more investment.
- While we oppose the concept of selling educational capital and green space to offset Departmental under-investment, we are willing to discuss the principle of land swap of just 10 hectares in return for a perpetual peppercorn lease of 30 hectares from the easement for the SW Rail corridor - provided all proceeds come to Hurlstone.
- The Government must Heritage list the remaining land as suggested to try to limit the DET and future Governments from another raid on the school farm in the future.
- We support the thrust of the proposed Educational Centre of Excellence (indeed it draws heavily on our submission which in turn is supported by feedback from two surveys of agriculture teachers and tetiary ag students). We don't support the proposed management structure which is fatally flawed by putting the DET bureaucracy in charge rather than agriculture and education experts.
- We strongly oppose dividing the school from its integrated boarding school and farm and handing those assets (and indeed the proceeds of sale) to very DET that has tried 3 times in 30 years to sell off the farm and can't be trusted as the custodian of his farm and green space in the same way as the school can - with the appropriate resources. The Inquiry Report actually criticises the DET's understanding of agriculture and provides no justification nor evidence for this proposed management structure. We think it is a last ditch effort to get hold of the land that is "too clever and too tricky" and puts broad agreement on the Report and future vision at risk.
- We agree that there needs to be changes in the way agriculture eduction is emphasised and taught into the future - in all schools, especially Hurlstone, supported by proper resources and respect for the course of study. We believe separating the teaching of agriculture from the farm is not supported by the evidence that suggests immersion and integration are key requirements for retention. We also believe that there is now an onus on the DET to specify the new proposed syllabus and the resources it will provide.
- Country parents are more likely to send their children to a safe, properly resourced integrated farm and school, than a commercial business unit split from the school.
- We are encouraged in our position by a range of other third-party experts who today indicated opposition to splitting the school from the boarding and farm facilities who advocate integration of these aspects of Hurlstone and that have been vital to bridging the city-country cultural divide. Those experts include the Isolated Childrens' Parents Association, The NSW Farmers Federation, the School P and C, the NSW P &C Federation, the Royal Agricultural Society, the Sydney Food Fairness Alliance, Cotton Growers, and the Agricultural Shows Society.
Summary SHEAP is excited by the vision of an Educational and Agricultural Centre that draws heavily on our suggestion and we are prepared to positively discuss most of the pinciples in the Report, including the proposed land swap. We cannot support splitting the school from its farm and boarding facility that all the evidence suggests needs to be an integral part of the proposed Centre of Excellence for it to work. This recommendation is not only bad structure and policy, it contravenes assurances by the Government that Hurlstone would remain a day AND boarding, agricultural high school. Our position is supported by respectable third party experts. Broad agreement could arrived at on the other principles if the proposed split and management structure was dropped. We have positive alternative suggestions to achieve the vision of an integrated Centre of Excellence in Agricultural Education (whateveryou call it) that borrows on Hurlstone's strong city and counry culture rather than dividing it and meets theneed for positive change in the future.
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