Sydney Boys High could host inner-city students to alleviate overcrowding ... - The Daily Telegraph (blog)

Students arriving at Sydney Boys High School at Moore Park in Sydney. Picture: Angelo Soulas Source: NewsLocal

SYDNEY Boys High School could host inner-city students as parents await the outcomes of the next education taskforce meeting run by the City of Sydney, P and C and the Department of Education.

Sydney State Independent MP Alex Greenwich has proposed prioritising positions at Sydney Boys High for local residents in the short term.

In a letter to the Minister for Education, Mr Greenwich highlighted "benefits" of the proposal to use the high school.

The idea came out of consultations with Community for Local Options for Secondary Education (CLOSE) and others associated with the school.

Mr Greenwich asked the minister to discuss the plan to use year 8 and year 9 selection criteria for year 7 inner city students with the education department.

"This would mean lowering the academic bar to facilitate more inner-city students," Mr Greenwich said.

"The benefit to the school is that parents would be a lot closer and would be able to get involved a lot more in things like volunteering.

"Sydney Boys currently has students who live as far away as Penrith and those parents can't be as active with the school as say parents who live in Surry Hills. It's a win for the parents, a win for the students and a win for the school."

However Mr Greenwich emphasised that while prioritising positions at the high school would ease some of the pressure, it was by no means a solution to the inner-city high school shortage.

"Increasing the intake at Sydney Boys to local students is a good fix but it doesn't completely solve the problem," he said.

"We still need a comprehensive high school in the city but in the meantime this solution will help take some of the pressure off and will benefit the school in the process."

Mr Greenwich said while the taskforce priorities had been focused on resolving issues for Ultimo Primary School, there was no reason why the high school issues could not be addressed at the same time.