NSW Labor to announce Murrumbidgee Regional High School will be split into Griffith and Wade high schools

The state's opposition party is expected to announce the dissolution of merged public high schools in Griffith and Murwillumbah in the state's north on Tuesday.

"These school mergers were forced on Griffith and Murwillumbah by the Liberals and Nationals without considering the views of the local communities," NSW Labor's deputy leader and education spokeswoman Prue Car said.

The merger of the two schools was originally pitched as a way to improve test results in Griffith by the then education minister and Member for Murray Adrian Piccoli.

As well as creating a new institution, significant funding was to have delivered infrastructure upgrades to the school.

The merger has attracted significant criticism for hundreds of classes without a regularly scheduled teacher and the school's test results have seen little change or improvement.

Rare bright spots for the merged school include its award-winning STEM academy and success on the sporting field.

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Ms Car said the merger in 2019 had exacerbated teacher shortages as a result of task duplication, unsustainable workloads on teachers and low morale, meaning teachers had chosen to leave town and the profession all together.

She highlighted the report into the merged school by the University of NSW which said; "staff well-being is below national benchmarks and building a single school culture has proven difficult as the two sites continue to operate almost independently".

"Public education in Griffith has suffered reputational damage throughout the consolidation process," the report read.

The party said a Chris Minns-led government would work with the community to find the best way to restore the two schools without harming students' learning.

"The NSW Government should be listening to the local Griffith community, including students, families and school staff who have been impacted by the merger of these public high schools," Ms Car said.

"Labor will work with the local community to restore the separate identities of Griffith's public high schools, improve staff morale and ensure both schools have a strong future."

Member for Murray Helen Dalton and Public Education Party candidate Kevin Farrell have welcomed the commitment.

Both candidates have made a demerger of the school a key part of their platform.

"The merger of Wade and Griffith High Schools has been a disaster from the very beginning being imposed on the community at the time," Member for Murray Helen Dalton said.

"There was no community consultation by former National Party Murray MP Adrian Piccoli and even today, the Nats still fail to see a problem."

Mrs Dalton said there was 14 teacher vacancies and some had been vacant for over six months.

"Current National Party education minister Sarah Mitchell has chosen to continue to ignore the report findings and perhaps even more importantly, the desperate pleas of the teaching staff, to demerge the school, and it's simply not good enough," she said.

Mr Farrell welcome the prospect of two public high schools in Griffith but said infrastructure and staffing remaining concerns.

"The next question for is will the new government, if it's a Labor government, will they still commit to building gymnasiums?" Mr Farrell said.

"Staffing is the most crucial ... they need to do something drastic to solve that problem."

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