Scandal of crumbling classrooms endured by 150,000 children

Published on Tuesday 29 September 2009 22:23

NEARLY a quarter of Scotland's school buildings are in poor or bad condition.

Despite progress on decreasing those in the worst condition, and an increase in those categorised as "good", critics warned it would still take years to bring Scotland's school estate up to standard.

Scottish Government figures show the number of state schools in a bad condition fell from 5 to 2 per cent in the past year, while those in the best condition rose from 15 to 17 per cent.

Overall, 17 per cent of schools were given the rating of A, good; 58 per cent were rated B, satisfactory; 21 per cent were rated C, poor; and 2 per cent were rated D, bad. Last year, 15 per cent were rated good, 53 per cent satisfactory, 26 per cent were poor and 5 per cent were bad.

In 2003, the then Scottish Executive promised all buildings would be out of the "poor" category by 2018, but public services watchdog Audit Scotland says this will take until 2028.

Greg Dempster, the general-secretary of the Association of Heads and Deputes in Scotland, which represents primary heads, said: "The Audit Scotland report (talked] about billions to bring the school estate up into the higher categories." He said education secretary Fiona Hyslop's announcement this week of 1.25 billion for 14 new secondaries to be built across Scotland by 2013, was too little, too slow.

He said: "It doesn't sound enough to tackle the problem, but obviously you are trying to build against historical neglect. It will take an awful lot of money to catch up."

The latest study surveyed 2,151 primary, 375 secondary and 182 special schools. Across Scotland, 525,699 pupils are taught in schools that are either in satisfactory or good condition. But 148,086 pupils are in schools that are in poor or bad condition.

Labour's education spokeswoman, Rhona Brankin, said parents, pupils and teachers had been let down. She said: "Labour PPP schemes have built or refurbished 49 schools in the last year and local councils have done a further 33 schools. The Scottish Government have not built any. The SNP need to make it clear if any of the secondary schools announced yesterday will completed by May 2011."

However, Ms Hyslop countered: "We are well on track to lift 100,000 school pupils, by 2011, out of poor conditions and into modern school buildings and classrooms, providing them with cutting-edge accommodation and facilities."

The statistics also showed that spending on school buildings rose by 43 million to 429m. But the overall average school was still only 70 per cent full, unchanged from last year.

Some 18 per cent of mainstream schools were at 90 per cent or higher capacity.