Connection through our schools is the answer
Opinion: The Hon. Ben Carroll, Victorian Deputy Premier and Education Minister. Herald Sun, Friday October 10 2025
As I recently drove through the suburb of Cobblebank to meet with the families of Dau Akueng and Chol Achiek, I was struck by the community where they live.
I passed a new school being built, a village shopping centre, a station, a basketball centre and a nice local park. Far from being rundown, this was a community on the up.
Looking around, you wouldn’t believe it could be the place where just before Father’s Day, those two young boys became the victims of horrific gang-related violence.
As I entered 15-year-old Dau’s house, and paid my respects at the shrine his family had created in his honour in the front room, I was instantly surrounded by grief. His father, so distraught at the unspeakable loss of his only son, could only communicate in writing.
A similar scene met me at 12-year-old Chol’s home. It was difficult to look at the photos of him, so young, and try to comprehend his vicious, senseless murder.
How could this have happened?
Despite the well run, modern infrastructure around us, I had an overwhelming sense of something missing – the infrastructure you don’t see.
When I drove home later that night, I came to a realisation: You cannot save children without saving families, and you cannot save families without building communities. So, where to from here?
Schools offer our best hope.
The most important protective factor outside the family home is the local school.
Schools are in every community, and are paid for by our taxes. So why shouldn’t they be available to everyone, to play peacefully together, to live side by side, and to build connections?
Their facilities can become meeting points for the sports clubs, language schools and cultural organisations that are the beating heart of any community.
However, bridging the gap between schools, families and these groups is not an easy process. It requires resources and persistence.
Outsiders are not always wanted in schools, and getting agreement between bureaucracies has too often made it difficult for partnership opportunities to get off the ground.
To get around this inertia, I have announced a $1.4m investment into a dedicated support team at the Department of Education to help schools in Melbourne’s west facilitate community use of their spaces.
As the son of a former public school business manager, I know that it cannot be on our educators alone to develop these community partnerships.
That’s why our dedicated support teams are helping schools manage logistics, promote opportunities, co-ordinate outreach, as well as take care of contracts and cleaning, making the process seamless for all involved.
We can also have trained social workers on site to provide support and referrals if parents need it.
The positive impact of initiatives like this are evident at home and abroad.
A few years ago, I visited the Harlem Children’s Zone, a world-renowned education and poverty-fighting organisation based in New York.
The HCZ is founded on the principle that education is not just a personal investment, it’s a public good that builds capacity for communities to govern themselves. It targets not only the educational, but also the social and economic needs of children and families.
Here in Victoria, the Colman Education Foundation’s “Our Place” program at Doveton College does similar work.
The Hon. Ben Carroll, Victorian Deputy Premier and Education Minister
The evidence shows that these sorts of early intervention programs – as well as supports such as our government’s free kinder, breakfast clubs and Glasses for Kids programs – are the best ways to reduce reoffending and produce wellbeing for families.
We know that the murders at Cobblebank must be a turning point.
To deliver justice for Chol and Dau, we have to wrap our arms around communities in need, and recognise that they are part of the solution.
Before I left Chol’s house, his family invited me to break bread and enjoy a traditional South Sudanese meal. As I sat with them, I saw the potential that exists in the generosity and resilience of their community.
It became clear to me that harnessing their strengths and working with them is the pathway to positive change.
As the saying goes: If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.
Ben Carroll is Victoria’s Deputy Premier and Education Minister
This article originally appeared in the Herald Sun, Friday October 10 2025 – Connection, through our schools, is the answer
