Opposition claims Year 7 move to high school will leave primary schools with ’ghost classrooms’

South Australian primary schools could be left with “ghost classrooms” when Year 7 is moved to high school over the next three years, the Opposition warns.

An Adelaide primary school principal fears teachers may end up having to clean their own classrooms when Year 7 is moved to high school over the next three years.

It comes as the Opposition warns schools could be left with “ghost classrooms” once the transition is made.

The concerns stem from the way school cleaning budgets are allocated, however the State Government denies vacated classrooms will be unusable.

An Adelaide principal, who spoke to The Advertiser on the condition of anonymity, said there were fears schools with already tight budgets would be forced to pick up cleaning bills for vacated classrooms or “worst case scenario, we’ll have a teacher cleaning their own classroom”.

Freedom of Information documents obtained by the Opposition reveal each school’s cleaning budget is based on enrolment figures.

Under the School Cleaning Area Resource Entitlement Assessment, each student attracts an allowance of either 7.5 metres squared or 11 metres squared, depending on whether they are primary or secondary school pupils. Schools are responsible for cleaning any areas in excess of the assessed cleaning area.

Year 7 will be moved to high school over the next three years in South Australia. Picture: iStock

The calculation has prompted uncertainty over the future of classrooms vacated by Year 7 students when they move to high school by 2022 because it would likely lead to a decrease in enrolment numbers and therefore a drop in cleaning funding.

“Maintenance all together is poor,” the anonymous principal said.

“I wasn’t surprised because everything gets pushed back to us these days.

“Our budget is so tight we might have consider closing the room and not being able to use it for anything and that would be a sad state of affairs.”

The principal said bigger schools with multiple Year 7 classes were at more risk and may have to dig into their own pockets to pay for cleaning.

“That’s money out of teaching and learning,” they said.

Opposition spokesman Blair Boyer said classrooms would likely end up empty.

“They’re just basically going to be ghost classrooms, sitting around and wasting away on a whole heap of primary school sites, and eventually they’ll fall into disrepair…unless the government actually stumps up the money to maintain them,” he said.
“All those primary schools that thought the one good thing they might get out of the shift (was) being able to use those classrooms for other things will find out that they can’t use them for anything and (the classrooms are) going to be there underutilized unless they dip into their own school savings to start paying for cleaning.”

Education Minister John Gardner said the current funding arrangements for cleaning schools had been in place for more than 10 years “and over that time the policy has delivered good cleaning standards”.

“The idea that this move is going to lead to ghost classrooms across the state is just frivolous,” he said.

“There are a large number of primary schools reporting to be at capacity and therefore moving Year 7 into high school will actually be a relief, providing a number of opportunities for schools that will be explored as part of the transition planning process.”