BERWICK
Thursday, 28 February, 2019
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Insight Education Centre for the Blind and Vision Impaired founder Alan Lachman is doing all he can to build a positive future for the school. 190869
Blind faith Victoria’s only school for the blind and vision impaired has closed its doors after the State Government failed to provided much-needed financial support. Insight Education for the Blind and Vision Impaired Berwick (Insight) founder Alan Lachman recently informed the Victorian Registration Qualifications Authority (VRQA) that the school has decided to not operate in 2019 or 2020. “While the school remains registered with the VRQA, its status is under active review,” VRQA department spokesperson said. “Among the issues facing the school are extremely low enrolments over several years. There are no students currently enrolled.” In the beginning of 2018, there were 11 students enrolled. By the end of 2018, Mr Lachman said three or four students were made to enrol in a mainstream school and the rest graduated. Mr Lachman said the school became “unviable” after the Victorian Department of Education and Training (DET) operatives in regions and schools have “worked tirelessly for six years to block nearly 80 families from enrolling their children at Insight.” “In those six years we have assumed that if we demonstrated what we were doing with
children that the incredible pushback against Insight would disappear and that we would end up with a partnership,” he said. “The mission of Insight is to give the children numeracy, literacy and life-skills but most of all self-confidence and self-esteem. We get them to catch-up because they’re almost always behind and then we exit them from Insight into the mainstream. “We aim to boost students’ performance and make sure they’re successful in the mainstream.” As a last resource, Mr Lachman is asking the Federal Government for $2.2m to fund Insight’s five-year plan. The P-8 school operation is now ‘on-hold’ for two years while Insight focuses entirely on engagement with 450 mainstream schools, DET headquarters, and 820 kindergartens to build awareness to gain future enrolments. According to Mr Lachman, Minister for Education James Merlino promised $1.5m to Insight by July 2018 for 18 months of Insight engagement activity with mainstream schools to build awareness, break down barriers and build enrolments however the money was never received. Insight has received government funding totally over $12m over nine years for buildings and operations including $2.14m in 2011 from the State Government, $1.5m in 2013 from the
Federal Government and a further $2.4m in 2014 from the State Government. Member for La Trobe Jason Wood played a major role in securing the $1.5m 2013 funding and has been backing Insight since. “The State Government has simply starved the school of students,” Mr Wood said. “Mr Lachman has always tried to work with the State Government but each time he thinks he gets close to getting somewhere it hasn’t quite happened. “The big issue has been that the school needs the DET and the education minister to encourage parents who have blind and vision impaired children to enrol them at Insight.” Recently, Mr Lachman sold his house for around $200,000 to pay staff salaries. “He’s using his own money and has even taken loans out to keep the school going,” Mr Wood said. “We can’t ask him for any more than what he’s already done, it’s about time the State Government recognised Alan’s hard work.” Every student that was enrolled at Insight Education Centre for the Blind and Vision Impaired costs the government around $40,000. “Mr Lachman previously had agreements with DET to encourage schools to send more children to Insight. As far as I was convinced, everything was on-track,” he said.
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