The appalling condition of Victoria’s State Schools has been in the headlines since eminent education expert Prof. Brian Caldwell said some state school buildings were in such a state that they should be bulldozed and rebuilt.

In total, Prof. Caldwell estimates that the government would need to spend $4 billion to bring Victoria’s state schools back up to standard. There is absolutely no doubt about the condition of some school buildings – horror stories abound.

Worse still, the State Government claims that it cannot financially keep up with the ballooning maintenance backlog, despite its strong financial position. It makes one ask; how exactly has State school infrastructure been allowed to fall into this condition and why can’t we afford to fix it?

Many of today’s problems date from the 1950’s when the Department of Education had to provide schooling for the ‘baby boomers’. Not only was there a shortfall of building materials after the war, there was suddenly a massive demand for schooling and the government could hardly keep up. In response, the Education Department’s director, A.H. Ramsay, recommended that a standard design of school buildings be developed to make school construction faster. So the Education Department built hundreds of ‘light timber construction’ (LTC) school buildings from about 1950 to the mid-1970’s. Apart from minor differences in the configuration of classrooms and choice of cladding materials, the same basic design was used for all schools during this period.

A typical Victorian state school of the period 1950-1974, built according to the
Department of Education’s generic ‘light timber construction’ design.

If you attended a State school, the chances are that at least part of the buildings looked something like the one shown above.

The ubiquitous ‘light timber construction’ buildings were cheap when built, but were never meant to last this long. School maintenance was allowed to fall at the wayside during the late 1980’s and savage funding cuts to education in the early 1990’s meant that the problem was compounded. Now the state has a stock of school buildings, many of which are shabby and inadequate. And this is affecting enrolments, as parents shun shabby state schools in favour of well-resourced Catholic and private schools.

The latest proposal is for public-private partnerships (PPP’s) to fund the massive reconstruction and refurbishment programme. In a nutshell, this means that a private company builds, controls and maintains the school facilities. After thirty years, the buildings are returned to the State Government.

This is not a good idea.

PPP’s are attractive because governments can borrow money without it showing as a deficit on the State’s budget sheet. However, the private sector cannot raise capital as cheaply as the state since interest rates are always higher for the private sector. Hence it takes longer to repay private-sector debt, which in the case of PPP’s represents a poor use of taxpayer’s money because it is public money that ultimately pays for the programme.

There is no doubt that something must be done about the condition of our public schools. But PPP’s are not the answer.

The State Government recently spent $1.2 billion hosting the Commonwealth Games. Furthermore, their insistence that public transport must be privately operated means that the government is literally spending twice as much money on transport than it needs to. The economy is the strongest it has been in a generation, the state’s finances are strong and GST revenue is flowing through state coffers.

If anything, isn’t it embarrassing for a State Government in a prosperous first-world country to admit that it cannot fund the maintenance of State School infrastructure? Where has all the money gone?

The State Government of Victoria owes it to parents and the wider community to provide schools with better quality facilities. The risk of doing nothing is that enrolments will continue to flow to private schools, leaving the state school system as nothing more than a “safety net” for the poor and disadvantaged.

References and Further Information:

Anon. (2006) The permancy (sic.) of school facilities. Architectus.
Caldwell, B. (2005) The deplorable neglect of our state schools. Online Opinion.
Davidson, K. (2006) The PPP potency is more about spin than substance. The Age, 4 July.
Department of Education and Training (2004) Education for all: The Department of Education, Victoria, 1872 – present
Leung, C.C. (2006) Bulldoze ageing govt schools, says expert. The Age, 5 July.

The school photographed for this article is Prince’s Hill Primary School in Carlton North.