Farrer Memorial Agricultural High School Airconditioning
| About this Item |
Subjects | Schools; Electricity; Budget: New South Wales; Public Works |
Speakers | Gardiner The Hon Jennifer |
Business | Adjournment |
Page: 14974
The Hon. JENNIFER GARDINER [5.47 p.m.]: For some years the Farrer Memorial Agricultural High School at Tamworth has been politely making representations to the Carr Labor Government to try to secure a capital works allocation in the State budget so that the school has an adequate power supply sufficient to enable the installation of airconditioning in the bulk of the school's dormitories. So far the school's representations seem to have fallen on deaf ears. Another summer has passed and the boarding students have suffered from very high temperatures throughout nights when they struggled to get a decent night's sleep, let alone study in most dormitories with study facilities.
Farrer was founded in 1939 and it is the sole boys agricultural high school in Australia. The school is named as a memorial to William Farrer, whose successful experiments in the growing of wheat strains contributed to Australia's general prosperity. The school, which has many distinguished ex-students, focuses especially on academic studies, the welfare of its students, its great traditions, its special focus on agriculture, and encouraging cultural and sporting pursuits. The goal of the school is to produce year 12 graduates who are "educated, personable gentlemen" who have the ability to succeed in a variety of vocational pursuits; and, indeed, it does achieve that goal.
In May 2000 the then principal of Farrer, Mr Ian Downs, made representations to the State Government on this issue. In February 2004, teachers at the school who belong to the New South Wales Teachers Federation, frustrated by the lack of a satisfactory response, declared:
We, the New South Wales Teachers Federation members of Farrer Memorial Agricultural High School, express disgust and dismay that the New South Wales Department of Education would continue to uncaringly submit our students and our staff to living conditions which see accommodation blocks with temperatures consistently in the high 30s and the low 40s during the summer months.
They said:
The learning of many of our students is being disrupted because of the lack of sleep that they are experiencing as a direct result of the conditions they must continually endure. There is simply not enough airconditioned areas to arrange for our boarding students to undertake their nightly homework study period in an environment with a reasonable temperature.
They also said:
The staff at Farrer have grave concerns about the occupational health and safety of staff and students in relation to the living conditions of students and staff at the school.
I have raised this matter in the House and the Minister has acknowledged that her predecessor, Dr Andrew Refshauge, approved initial funding for an electrical upgrade in this year's capital works program and that it is likely that a further upgrade will be necessary to support airconditioning of the dormitories. That is correct, but the airconditioning for the dormitories has still not been addressed.
As the school has told the Department of Education and Training, the school is residential in nature and at any given time accommodates approximately 300 students. The main dormitories are some 50 to 60 years old and as a result of their logistics are stifling during the hot summer months in Tamworth. In February this year, there were instances of the temperature in the dormitories still being 30 degrees at 7 o'clock in the morning, having been at higher temperatures at 10 o'clock and 11 o'clock.
In the previous February, 19 February for example, monitoring of temperatures in the dormitories produced results such as those I now relate. In the Northcott building, dormitory 15, the temperature was 36 degrees at 6.45 p.m. and 34 degrees at 10.30 p.m. In dormitory 17, the temperature at 6.45 p.m. was 37 degrees, and was still 33 degrees at 10.30 p.m., after records of 36 degrees at 7.30 p.m. and 8.30 p.m. and 34 degrees at 9.30 p.m. In the Wetherell building, dormitory 9D, the temperature was 34 degrees at 6.45 p.m. and 33 degrees at 10.30 p.m. In the newest dormitory building, Gosling, which is about 10 years old, the temperature at 10.30 p.m. was recorded at 36 degrees right through the evening. In parts of the dormitory accommodation, in 24D for example, the lowest temperature was 21 degrees but it was recorded at 32 degrees at night. The next night, it got up to 39 degrees in the same part of Gosling and in some of the sleeping quarters in that building. On 2 February last year, the temperature hit 39.5 degrees in Northcott.
On a reasonably warm day recently I inspected the dormitories with one of Farrar's teachers, Mr Luke Bristow, and spoke with one student, for example, who was studying in the dormitory buildings. He was working with the windows wide open. That was satisfactory as far as trying to cool the place during the day. But, in the evening, the boys have to decide whether to suffer the heat or throw open the windows and try to reduce the temperature that way, only to be assaulted by swarms of insects, because Farrar is located in the middle of paddocks where insect life abounds, and the insects are attracted to the lights under which the students try to study. Unfortunately, the insect screens on the dormitory windows at Farrar do not function to achieve the purpose for which they were designed. So what do the boys do? As four Ministers for Education and Training have been in office while Farrar has been making these petitions, I sincerely trust that the current Minister will address this matter in the next budget.