Crumbling Schools
OUR CRUMBLING SCHOOLS
In an age of information super highways and supersonic travel, we still find children in our schools educated in Victorian conditions with crumbling walls, leaky roofs and heating breakdowns.
The National Union of Teachers has campaigned over many years for improvements to school buildings. It has urged successive governments to invest in the stock of schools to meet changing educational needs and to conform with the basic requirements of hygiene, health and safety.
This Government has started a programme of repairs and renovations which has been outstanding for many years. Our children's education depends on this programme being continued and extended.
A HISTORY OF NEGLECT
Each year the NUT acts to support teachers and parents where school buildings are in disrepair. Examples in recent years have included:
- a secondary school where corrugated tin roofs erected after wartime bombing damage were in place 50 years later; and
- a primary school where the only safe access to the school was through the boys' lavatories.
- 36 per cent of responses were of the opinion that their school's poor state of repair hindered the education of pupils;
- 33 per cent of responses felt that it adversely affected the health and safety of pupils and staff;
- 44 per cent considered that it adversely affected the morale of pupils and staff.
As time has passed, the decay has progressed and the costs of repair have grown. By 1997, the local authority associations estimated, following a survey of their members, that the cost of bringing school buildings up to standard would be £3.2 billion.
This Government has recognised the importance and relevance of school buildings to children's education. The New Deal for Schools has provided £1.3 billion to tackle the backlog of repairs to school buildings over the lifetime of this Parliament. Specific programmes have been put in place to end the scandal of young children using outside toilets; to replace or upgrade inefficient heating systems; to replace temporary classrooms; and to renovate outdated science laboratories.
ONLY A BEGINNING
Still more needs to be done. The extra money has been warmly welcomed by all teachers but it has only begun to tackle the long backlog. Following this year's Comprehensive Spending Review, plans have been announced to increase further the money allocated to education. The need for our children to learn in clean, safe and modern schools must be kept high amongst the competing priorities.
PRIVATE FINANCE OR PUBLIC INVESTMENT?
The Government has encouraged private sector involvement in building and repairing schools through the Private Finance Initiative (PFI). PFI schemes often lead to inflexible, long term contract arrangements and higher eventual costs to the taxpayer than traditional funding methods. The aim of investment in public services should be to provide value for money for the community rather than the private sector.
THE NUT SEEKS, IN PARTICULAR:
- a continuing commitment to spend the money necessary to repair our crumbling schools;
- investment by traditional methods wherever possible rather than more costly private sector "partnership";
- reintroduction of effective regulations governing space and structural standards for school premises;
- regulations requiring surveys for the presence of asbestos in schools and removal wherever it is found; and
- increased resources for the Health and Safety Executive to allow enforcement of the Health and Safety at Work Act and other health and safety legislation.
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