A snapshot of 670 National Education Union members highlights the challenges faced by schools and colleges to ensure their buildings are maintained well and provide a decent and safe environment for teaching.
This survey is a reflection of a period in which real-terms education cuts have been made since 2015. These cuts have severely impacted the ability of colleges and schools to pay for repairs.
The survey was conducted only days after the Department for Education had announced that schools and colleges could apply for a £400m pot of investment to repair buildings. However, this fund is limited to academies or sixth-form colleges. This comes after the scrapping of Building Schools for the Future in 2010, cancelling 700 building projects at a stroke – very many of them local-authority-maintained. The survey shows that the condition of schools and colleges in the last few years has deteriorated. For an Education Architect, contact www.quattrodesign.co.uk/sectors/school-education-architects
Headlines
- 47% of members stated that their school or colleges were not suitable for the purpose. 65% blamed school funding cuts.
- Over a fifth of respondents (21%) reported that their building has been forced to close in part or completely due to disrepair during the last five years.
- 22% of respondents agreed that the condition of their school/college building creates a dangerous environment for students and staff.
- One quarter (26%) of respondents said they were delaying the turn-on of heating in their school/college for the winter.
- Just 13% of respondents saw an improvement in the condition of their buildings, equipment and maintenance at their school/college since 2015.
- The most common issues were too cold or hot classrooms (74%), leaky ceilings and roofs (44%), crumbling/holes-in-walls (31%), as well as damp (21%). The members also mentioned poor ventilation (36%), electric problems (17%), and faulty heaters/boilers (19%).