By XAVIER SMERDON
ONE year after it closed down due to crippling debts of more than $18 million, the owner of Mowbray College’s Caroline Springs Town Centre campus has announced it will re-open as a grammar school from next year.
Wyndham City Councillor and Truganina resident, Intaj Khan, bought the campus in October last year for $6.7 million.
Last week Mr Khan said the school would once again open its doors to new students, under the name West Melbourne Grammar School.
Mr Khan, who also runs the Western Institute of Technology, told Star he had met with Melton City Council’s Mayor and CEO to outlay his plans for the once proud school, which is now overgrown by weeds and has been vandalised several times.
It will be a non-denominational school run by the newly-established West Melbourne Education Limited, a five-person board.
Mr Khan said the school would only be run as a primary school and in its first year only prep students would be accepted.
“We are taking a very conservative approach and using a tested model,” Mr Khan said.
“There is no room for mistakes here.”
Enrolment projections for the school, which were released to Star, reveal that every year until 2020 a new grade level will be introduced at the school.
By 2020 it is predicted that 483 students will be studying at the school.
Students will be divided into four houses – Unaipon House (Yellow), Flynn House (Red), Gilmore House (Blue) and Melba House (Green), named after famous Australians.
Mr Khan said he had predicted that it would cost $8 million to get the school completely up and running and in the first year there would only be 10 staff members.
“What we said we would do, we did,” he said.
“It’s now up to the community to show how they will support us.
“The feedback from the very beginning was that this area needs a great school and that it needs to be non-denominational.”
Expressions of interest for enrolment at the school are now being accepted.
