Page 2767 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 17 September 2014
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But pre 1980s and 1970s schools are far more common and so are their faults. If you look at the map on the ACT education directorate site, there are 97 public school sites, often with several levels of schooling co-located on the one site. At those sites a significant and overwhelming majority of the buildings are over 30 years old. Many—too many—are over 50 years of age. And all of these older schools have building issues. Too many of our schools have leaky roofs; most have asbestos; some have appallingly antiquated toilet facilities, cracked and dangerous play areas.
The five-year schools infrastructure refurbishment program for older ACT public schools wound up in 2011 and cost $86 million. The intention of the program was for upgrades and refurbishments in schools more than 12 years old. The fact that many schools felt compelled to write to the Gonski committee when it sought submissions from schools on what they were lacking, at about the time the refurbishment program was being wound up, suggests funding fell short and the refurbishments were not completed.
Many Canberra schools listed such basic things as roofs, repairs to ceilings, lighting and ceiling upgrades, refurbishments of toilets. Dickson College bemoaned the fact that while the school had two lifts to provide disabled access to the second level of the schools, the lifts were unreliable and regularly broke down, frequently trapping students for a considerable time. Others referred to asbestos. And indeed, given the age of the school, many have some form of asbestos or other hazardous material. To manage this, schools are audited for asbestos annually and for dangerous and hazardous materials every three years. Building condition assessments of all schools are also conducted on a three-year rolling average.
The 2012-2013 DET annual report advises a total of $14.131 million was spent on school repairs and maintenance, and in 2012-13 28 schools were assessed. But as there were 86 schools in that reporting period, and most were over 30 years old, is an audit every three years enough? Given the spate of incidents in the last few months this year, perhaps it is not. I am not suggesting work is not being done, but is there sufficient money to keep up with the demand?
At the 2012 election Labor promised an infrastructure fund of some $70 million, presumably to replace the obviously inadequate $86 million schools infrastructure refurbishment program. Called school infrastructure for the future, this new fund is intended to be spread over four years to upgrade and maintain public school infrastructure, particularly in older schools. At the same time there was a $28 million commitment to upgrade Belconnen High School. The intention was, and I quote from the costing request, “to ensure Belconnen High School has access to the latest in school learning environments”. The intended implementation date of the commitment was during the 2013-2014 financial year.
In both commitments the money has been somewhat slow in coming. In this current year’s budget there is an allocation of $250,000, and last year there was a $2 million allocation for Belconnen. That leaves a shortfall of $25.5 million and it is already 12 months behind its completion date.
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