Monitor The
Your Community Newspaper ~ Roxby Downs
www.themonitor.com.au
Phone (08) 8671 2683
Fax (08) 8671 2843
Volume 7, Wednesday November 24, 2010
Roxby Trade Training Centre
REJECTED T
By Celeste Lustosa and Millie Thomas
he application for a $3.3 million trade training centre has been rejected in Round 3 by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) Assessment Panel acting for the Federal Government. Roxby Downs Area School, Woomera Area School and Marree Aboriginal School submitted the proposal to implement a Trade Training Centre in Schools program in June this year and it came as a surprise that the application was rejected. Under the Federal Government program, schools can apply to build or refurbish trade training facilities and purchase industry standard equipment and tools so that school students can commence qualifications and develop the skills required to enter a trade. The Desert Trade Training Centre (DESTTC) would have provided high level nationally accredited training up to Certificate III. Training offered would include trade studies in engineering, electro technology, building and construction, civil construction and automotive repair. The principal of RDAS, Kath Macalister spoke to The Monitor about the disappointment, but she said this is just a delay and they are far from saying it won’t happen. According to Mrs Macalister, the application process had started at the beginning of the year but the interest of expression was put in March. “After the waiting period, the list of the successful schools was published and we weren’t on it. So we immediately went for a feedback to find out why we didn’t make the grade. The feedback was mainly positive and we were told we were so close and one of the issues was that this round had a relatively small amount of money for the number of applications put in. “They said there was a comment by the assessors that we hadn’t put an equipment list in, but what really happened was that they print all the information on the application for the panel but failed to print the workbook. We pointed that out to them to make sure that doesn’t happen again and we will write a letter to the Director of DEEWR to try to resolve this,” Mrs Macalister explained. She also said that the only other point was that there was an issue around construction costs. “When we have any kind of construction done in remote areas the cost to build things are higher
than in the city. Unfortunately that will put our construction costs at a figure higher than the DEEWR cap for such funding. This is a difference that we will have to resolve before we re-submit the application,” she added. “The only genuine issue that we will probably have difficulty doing a lot about are the construction costs. We can work on that through DTEI to see if there are ways around it. What we don’t want to do is put in a false underestimated construction cost because what would then happen is that we wouldn’t be able to get the full scale of works we put in, which was significant. There weren’t any other issues and we believe that next time the application should go through according to Mrs Macalister. “On a scale of one to ten, yes we are disappointed because it means a year delay. Are we devastated? No, because I believe we have a highly successful application and I think we will make it. It won’t be fast as it takes two to three years once you get the TTC funding to actually get things going but this town is going to expand. As it does we need to have an improved capacity to train our youth, residents in Roxby Downs, rather than the main employers (such as BHP) always having to look outside for employees,” Mrs Macalister said. The RDAS principal concluded by acknowledging the work of Juliette Demaine, who was paid by the school but according to Mrs Macalister, “There isn’t enough pay in the world to cover the work she put in. She did a huge amount of work for this project.”
RDAS Principal Kath Macalister and Juliette Demaine were pleased with their application and while disappointed with the outcome will apply again next year.
Local industry will support another bid
Phil Lacey, member of ECFIT, CFIT and General Manager of Olympic Dam Precision Engineering outlined the benefits that a trade skills training centre would have to not only Roxby Downs, but the entire region. “We would just have tremendous benefits from a trade skills training centre,” said Mr Lacey. “In last week’s paper I was reading that
BHP are only days away from making an announcement on their EIS. We know that there is a positive feeling about the expansion going forward. “With announcements pending and high confidence that the expansion is going to go ahead, the potential boom in this area is right there. We’ll advertise locally for employment,
but for example just recently, we have been advertising for a mechanic and there was nobody local to do it.” Mr Lacey also pointed out what would happen to other communities around the State, should we not introduce a trades training centre.
The Rotary Club of Roxby District presents the
ROXBY DOWNS CHRISTMAS PAGEANT Ban
ZY” Z U B R d “M
Proudly supported by
4th December 2010 from 7pm
Stall and float registration forms to be returned to Roxby Hourglass Jewellers, Raine and Horne or the Roxby Downs Council or fax to 8671 3366 before Wednesday 1st December 2010
MAJOR SPONSORS: BHP Billiton SPONSORS: Roxby Central Traders Association, The Monitor, RoxFM, ODT Australis, Raine & Horne Roxby Downs, Roxby Downs Council
Continued on page 3