School councils call on State Government to fix run-down buildings

CHILDREN are being taught in outdated and cramped classrooms as Victorian public schools battle to keep up with overwhelming enrolment numbers, a new report reveals. Now school councils are lobbying for action.

CHILDREN are being taught in outdated and cramped classrooms as schools battle to keep up with overwhelming enrolment numbers, a report has found.

The State Government has invested more than $3.8 billion in school infrastructure, including a new high school at Preston, and will deliver more than 1300 school upgrades across Victoria.

But a Victorian Auditor General report reveals a decade of underfunding has left schools with a backlog of necessary maintenance.

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Bell Primary School’s enrolments have increased by more than 150 per cent over the past 10 years with almost three quarters of students now taught in portable classrooms.

The school no longer has an outdoor area large enough to accommodate staff and students for assemblies and events such as Book Week.

It received $2 million last year in state funding to update their 90-year-old main building but its masterplan estimates they need about $10 million to finish the job.

Students at Bell Primary School have their assemblies outside because there is no hall large enough to fit them. Picture: Mark Dadswell

“The extraordinary amount (of funding) required to meet the needs of an existing primary school shows how far things have been let go,” Bell Primary School council president Glenn Dunstone said.

Northcote Primary School council president Ian Taylor said despite being allocated more than $3 million last year it wasn’t enough to cover necessary teaching spaces and bathroom upgrades.

“We appreciate that we’ve been taken this far but we want to do the whole job properly,” he said.

Victorian Council of Social Service chief executive Emma King said while a significant amount of money had been spent to upgrade public schools, even more needed to be done.

“We send our kids to school to learn and prepare for adulthood. The very least we can do is provide them with appropriate facilities to do so,” she said.

Northcote state Labor candidate Kat Theophanous said the Government had provided more than $45 million to Northcote schools and further commitments would be announced.

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