A secondary school in Karori?

Stuff reports:

The Ministry of Education let down Karori and Wellington residents by granting a teachers’ college in the Wellington suburb of Karori to Victoria University, Wellington Central MP Grant Robertson says. 

The university is to dispose of the Karori campus, which was transferred to it for $10 in 2014.

The site, potentially worth more than $20 million, was the university’s teacher training college, but education staff and students moved  to Victoria’s main campus in Kelburn in February. 

One can argue that any transfer should have been conditional on it being used for educational purposes.

Steve Stuart, deputy secretary sector for enablement and support at the ministry, acknowledged earlier community interest in a secondary school being developed on the site.

“Now that Victoria University has initiated the process to make the land available we will re-check and update our population projections so that we can be clear about the Ministry’s long-term view of overall schooling needs in Karori,” he said.

Robertson has been advocating the land be set aside for a future secondary school. I thought there wouldn’t be the population in Karori to support one, but Robertson may be right.

At the last census there were 1,086 13 to 17 year olds living in Karori. That would seem to be enough to make a secondary school viable. Of course not everyone in Karori would want to attend a local secondary school, but to counter that you might get some people wanting to attend from outside Karori such as Wilton.