Sunshine TAFE’s ageing portable classrooms will be demolished to make way for a state-of-the-art “skills and development hub”.
On Tuesday, the state government and the Ian Potter Foundation pledged $10 million and $5 million respectively to a $40 million redevelopment project of Victoria Polytechnic (VU).
“We see this as being critical to the success of trades in the future,” VU’s vice president of vocation education, Grant Dreher, said.
Victoria Polytechinc’s Sunshine campus offers engineering, building and trade courses, as well as an English language program for migrants.
Once completed, the new centre will include a space dedicated to engineering design and innovation. It will cater for prototype design, micro manufacturing, practice sharing and networking.
Plans also include a café, gymnasium and a bookshop.
Mr Dreher said he hoped programs offered would also attract more women to trades.
“There are a dearth of opportunities for young women out there, it is hoped this will change that,” he said.
The existing portable classrooms, inherited from a secondary school that formerly occupied the Ballarat Road site, will be demolished within six months. Construction on the new hub is expected to start at the beginning of 2018.
Former Victorian Governor General and Ian Potter Foundation board member Sir James Gobbo said the centre would help lift the profile of the campus and the economic development of the region.
“Sunshine has a very special role in the development of the west,” he said. “This is a very special day in the history of Victoria University. We are very committed to revitalising TAFE in the west of Melbourne.”
