Radio Brisvaani
AN historic Catholic boys’ school that closed 11 years ago is set to reopen as a high-rise coeducational college as the church makes a massive push in the Brisbane metropolitan area.
Marist College at Rosalie, 3km west of the CBD, is set to be reborn because of a recent population surge in inner-city that left most Catholic schools “chock full”.
The new college is likely to be a “vertical school” with a $10 million high-rise block of classrooms built close to where the first school was erected ninety years ago.
An enthusiastic group of Marist Brothers old boys who have championed the project were buoyed by Brisbane Catholic Education research showing the school would readily attract pupils from a catchment that included Milton, Brisbane City, Red Hill, Bardon, Auchenflower, Kelvin Grove, Spring Hill and Toowong.
Many students travel outside the catchment to attend Catholic schools in other areas.
Old boys Joe Nowak, Jim Griffith and Kerry Gallagher said the school shut in 2008 because of dwindling enrolments.
They want the school reopened with bargain basement fees of $6000 year to reflect the Marist Brothers original ethos of providing an education to the less privileged.
“It has to happen because most of the catholic schools in Brisbane are chock-full,” Mr Nowak said.
Mr Nowak said a large number of Catholics were forced into state schools and other religious because of a lack of places in Catholic schools.
Mr Gallagher said the living densities had altered dramatically in the catchment in the last decade. There was a rise in apartment living while thousands of elderly residents who died or moved into nursing homes had passed their homes to families with growing children.
He said elite Catholic schools like Gregory Terrace, Stuartholme and Marist Brothers Ashgrove would not be adversely impacted by a new school in their catchment.
They were already at capacity with waiting lists for students seeking entry.
Mr Griffith said he would like to see a born-again Marist College at Rosalie become a feeder school for Ashgrove.
Mr Nowak said the school could open with around 400 pupils and grow to accommodate 4000.
There are several suitable buildings on the old school site and the church retained ownership of the land.
Fr Gerry Kalinowski from Rosalie parish said more research was needed.
“It’s a good idea but there are practical realities to consider.”
A spokesman for Brisbane Catholic Education said there were now 161 Catholic schools in Brisbane, 20 of them run by religious orders.
The church faithful were demanding more schools because of the population density increases throughout Brisbane and beyond.
“We’ve got a plan to open another 15 or 20 schools in the next 10 years or so,” said John Phelan.
“We have property people scouting for land.”
All new schools would all be co-ed.
“Parents tell us that’s what they prefer,” Mr Phelan said.
He said a new school would open next year at Fitzgibbon on Brisbane’s northside on an old golf driving range. A new primary school to be known as St Ann’s would open at Redbank Plains, Ipswich, he said.
