Education a big winner for Queanbeyan in NSW budget

NSW Member for Monaro, John Barilaro said a new distance education school in Queanbeyan will receive $10 million.

"The project will combine the distance education facilities at Queanbeyan Public School and Karabar High School into a new facility on the Queanbeyan High School site," Mr Barilaro said.

The Queanbeyan Regional Education Hub will cater for kindergarten to year 12 and facilitate long distance education for around 950 students in south eastern NSW.

The project is currently progressing through design and planning stages, with the new centre expected to open in 2018.

"This project recognises the value of distance education and learning," said Karabar High School Principal Andrew Turvey.

"Combining the current facilities into a new, state-of-the-art centre will help provide a seamless K-12 approach for students with complex learning needs," he said.

Eloise Dews, Assistant Principal, Queanbeyan Public School Distance Education said she is looking forward to improved flexibility and collaboration.

"Uniting the two campuses will give distance education a much stronger presence in the region – we want the new centre to really be part of the Queanbeyan community," she said.

A new security fence will also be built at Queanbeyan East Public School.

Across the region, public schools in Southern NSW will receive $769 million in recurrent funding in 2016-17.

A further $5 million will be split between Snowy Monaro Regional Council and Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council for council road projects.

Further afield, planning the Charleyong Bridge over the Mongarlowe River near Braidwood will receive $2.15 million and $1.5 million will be allocated to preventing rock falls on Kosciuszko Road near Jindabyne.

There was nothing Queanbeyan-specific addressed for housing and rental prices, or public transport.

Although, $1 million was allocated to community transport across Monaro targeting improved services for elderly and disabled citizens.

As the NSW minister for regional development and skills, Mr Barilaro said he was pleased with the state's job rates.

"This government has taken NSW from having the lowest jobs growth of any mainland state to a position where we have the lowest unemployment rate in the country, the strongest employment growth and where we are creating almost two-thirds of the nation's jobs", said Mr Barilaro.

Overall, Gladys Berejiklian predicts a surplus of $3.7 billion for NSW in the next financial year.