Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to talk about some of the amazing schools we have in our regional areas across South Australia. I am lucky enough to get the opportunity to go out, mostly, to announce and open programs based on the Capital Grants Program, and I give a shout-out to the Block Grant Authority for doing such a great job on it. But, most recently, I went to two schools—one in Kadina, Harvest Christian College, and one in Port Pirie, Mid North Christian College. What struck me about both of these schools is the amazing and innovative programs that they have in those schools that aren't just open to their students but to all of the students in the local area. One has specific programs in agriculture, and the other has specific programs in aviation—both really, really critical industry areas for our regions.

In Kadina, the Block Grant Authority has just run the process, and we've updated their library and provided additional learning spaces for those students, which makes it an excellent place once they've finished dealing with all their agricultural training which will help them into the future, given there are so many farms and agricultural businesses in that region. The other one, Mid North Christian College, has flight training and engineering training. They also do drone construction and drone operation, and they have an amazing flight simulator. Some of those students are going to go on and work in some of the most important areas, including one student who's heading off to the Royal Flying Doctor Service. I give a shout-out to those schools for the amazing work that they do for our regions.