School probe irks principals
Canterbury principals have conveyed their “concerns”, “frustration and disappointment” after the Government launched a ministerial inquiry into plans for new school buildings.
It follows the halting of the delivery of more than 100 new classrooms and two teaching blocks earlier this month due to cost, change of priority or change to roll growth.
Education Minister Erica Stanford said yesterday there had been “a number of cost escalations and some schools expecting exciting, bespoke building projects that are not able to be delivered on”.
She said the Ministry of Education had paused 20 building projects and told her there could be “up to 350 projects in various stages, from design through to pre-construction, where expectations far exceeded what could be delivered”.
The inquiry, which would aim to report back in three months, would “address problems with the school property system where the scope of property works planned was unrealistic and unaffordable”, she said.
Hornby High School principal Iain Murray said he had been left in the dark for months and felt let down by the ministry when he finally heard the “frustrating” news. He began planning an extra eight classrooms with the ministry early last year, even completing the design process – until “everything went quiet” in September.
Now Hornby High School can expect just two portable classrooms this term and another two next term.
The school had grown to about 950 students this year but was built for only 825.
“[We’re] overloaded with students. We have got every single space being used,” Murray said.
“For this year we will scrape by, just. If there’s nothing in place for next year … then we really have to properly start making serious decisions about how we run the school.
“I know within Christchurch and the surrounds it is a significant issue and some will be in a more difficult position than us.”
Canterbury West Coast Secondary Principals’ Association president Joe Eccleton sent Stanford and secretary for education Iona Holsted a letter detailing the “concerns”, “frustration and disappointment” Canterbury principals felt.
The ministry failed to understand how fast the region was growing, despite principals providing “overwhelming evidence of in-zone roll increases”, he said.
Temporary classrooms weren’t a “viable solution”. They were often substandard and unfit for specialist purposes, and “are simply indicative of poor strategic planning”.
Some schools were reporting holding classes in administration areas and classrooms in states of disrepair, he said. If the ministry didn’t provide appropriate classrooms for growing schools, some would be forced to turn away in-zone students. “This is not a position we would wish to be in, however, our schools do not have the financial capacity, nor should they be required to fund the building of extra classrooms,” he wrote.
Eccleton told The Press his own school had planned a new 14-classroom technology block with the ministry last year, but “come the summer holidays nothing happened”. After follow-ups with the ministry this month, he had some sort of building confirmed but did not know what it would be or where it would go and remained sceptical it would even be built.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the ministry had been looking at cost effectiveness since September, but it was not related to expected cost cuts to the public service. “When you’re talking about several billion dollars and you're talking about 350 schools, we've got to find out what's happening.”
Labour Leader Chris Hipkins called it a “desperate attempt to create an excuse to cut much-needed school building projects”. “National are choosing to prioritise tax cuts over classrooms for children.” He said Labour upgraded every school in the country and built thousands of classrooms and added urgent temporary teaching spaces to accommodate more students. “Cost escalations in the building sector have been a fact of life. National were told before the election they hadn’t allowed enough for cost escalations in their fiscal plan and chose to ignore that and claim tax cuts were affordable. They aren’t and now it looks like kids will be the latest to pay the price.”
Senior ministry staff were asked respond to news of the inquiry on Monday as they appeared before the Education and Workforce Select Committee.
Holsted said while she had not heard comments made by the prime minister on Monday afternoon, she was aware of the review. She understood at a broad level it would examine how the ministry came to be where it was and what it should do going forward, which was “not a bad thing to do”. Nor was it “unusual” for a new Government to look at a piece of work like that. She said staff would welcome opportunities for improvement.