A NEW, fee-free school at Davoren Park is set to offer a wide range of alternative education measures for learners of all ages.

Catholic Education South Australia (CESA) last week announced it will spend $14.5 million building a new education centre in the north aimed at providing services for disadvantaged students.

It will be made up of three separate institutions and will be built on Skewes Street, Davoren Park – the current site of Garden College.

The first stage, set to open in 2021, will be home to an outreach education program for 12 to 17-year-olds who are unable to reach their potential in the traditional school system.

It will be established in partnership with Edmund Rice Education Australia and be an extension of its existing outreach program at Elizabeth North, which currently caters for 80 students.

CESA director Neil McGoran said the school will be free for its students to meet the financial needs of its attendees.

“We’ve been working with the minister for education (John Gardner) who has the ability to stipulate a special assistance school,” he said.

“Being a special assistance centre actually recognises that parents can’t make a contribution, so that’s waived so they can access the kind of learning they need without having to pay fees.

“Each of the three campuses will be designated as such.”

In 2022, a second school will cater for older students aged 17 to 24-years-old and offer flexible learning programs aimed at helping those who may have dropped out of school early obtain their South Australian Certificate of Education.

CESA expected this campus to open for 65 students in 2022, before growing to 195 pupils in 2027.

Future plans for the “school and services village” include a primary school which will see students recommended by nearby schools and the state’s education department for an alternative education program.

Dr McGoran said CESA recognised it “could do more” to support disadvantaged students in the north, so got to work planning the new schools.

“Ideally, every young person in the north should be able to find some success in school, education and in life,” he said.

“We, as Catholic education, have a responsibility to do a bit more than we have been doing for those young people for whom schooling isn’t working out.

“We undertook some research in terms of what CESA does to meet its mission imperative. We have 100 schools which are all very different and offer different things for young people.

“At the same time, we’ve noticed out in the north… that there are an increasing number of young people disengaged from schooling.”

“Our responsibility and opportunity is through education – and the gift that it (education) is – is to change schooling to meet the needs of young people, rather than just hoping young people change to meet what it is we’ve been doing for schooling.”