Next school step is two weeks away

Education Minister Nick McKim yesterday refused to say when he would announce the make-up and terms of reference for a group that he wants to set up to investigate how to deal with declining student enrolments.

He said that would be done "shortly", "as soon as possible" and in "the not-too-distant future", before indicating that the announcement would be made before he takes annual leave starting on August 8.

Mr McKim was questioned at the official opening of building projects at Albuera Street Primary School in the South which were funded under state and federal programs.

Several groups have been lobbying the minister for a spot on the reference group, and online speculation about his next move has been rife since the 20 schools named for closure received a reprieve on July 5.

Mr McKim said that hit-list was now irrelevant and he was focused on working with Tasmanians on how to address the challenge of declining enrolments.

"Just so everyone understands we're losing one large school's worth of students out of the government system every year, and that's a 15-year trend .... that trend does place pressure on us as some federal funding, for example, is enrolment- based so when enrolments go down our funding goes down," he said.

"Of course I would expect the group to consider things like linkages to school communities, enrolments and, potentially, the group may even consider recent investments into schools - but ultimately I'm not going to pre- empt what the group will do."

He said he still hoped to receive recommendations back from the group by the end of the year.

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