Efforts to have Rutherglen Common School included on the Victorian Heritage Register as the first of its kind in the country have faltered at the first hurdle.
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Rutherglen resident David Valentine applied to have the school included on the register after members found evidence it was the first free, secular and compulsory school in not only Victoria, but also Australia, when it opened on January 13, 1873.
The arguments have failed to win over Victorian Heritage Register executive director Steven Avery, but the society will have a chance to make its point again at a hearing next week.
In a report detailing his recommendation to not include the common school on the register, Mr Avery said Victoria already had at least 10 heritage-listed examples of common schools from that era.
"It does not contain unusual features of note that were not widely replicated. It is not of a class of place endangered to the point of rarity," he said.
"There is no evidence that the aesthetic characteristics of Rutherglen Common School are appreciated or valued by the wider Victorian community, or have received critical recognition or wide public acknowledgement of exceptional merit."
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The executive director did acknowledge the period of 1873 was historically significant in Victoria as "the era of the foundation of modern state education".
But he said the schools purposefully designed and constructed by the education department were better for understanding the history.
One of the schools already included on the Victorian Heritage Register is the nearby Beechworth Primary School, constructed two years later in 1875, which has been listed for its "architectural significance" to the period.
Mr Avery said Rutherglen Common School had local significance, which was acknowledged by being part of Indigo's Council's heritage overlay, but was not significant on a state level.
The common school is now used as a museum that also houses artifacts from the wine and farming industries and other parts of Rutherglen and surrounds.
Research has found the school was eventually built for a final cost of £547.
It was agreed that half that amount was to be raised by the Rutherglen community and the other half contributed by the then education department, but the community had trouble raising its share so the department had to make up the small deficiency.
The recommendation from Mr Avery to not include the school on the Victorian Heritage Register is not yet final - a registration hearing has been scheduled for February 28.
