The Press WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27, 1969. Education Building

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32077, 27 August 1969, Page 12

The Press WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27, 1969. Education Building

The five-year periods for which most education building forecasts are made are only just long enough for the completion of schemes by the time the buildings are needed. Even so, the planners are seldom likely to be exactly on target The tendency for children to remain longer at secondary school and the efforts to reduce the size of classes at all levels complicate the present estimates. The year 1967 was- exceptional because fewer jobs were open to school leavers. Headmasters expected that about 1500 more children than usual would return to school in 1968; in fact the number turned out to be 5000. Although that was not a large number compared with the total roll of 153,000 in State secondary schools, it made a considerable difference to the size of fifth and sixth forms. A sudden change of this sort, aggravating the problems already posed by the long-term tendency for pupils to lengthen their stay at school, is likely to upset the best-laid plans. The Minister of Education, Mr Kinsella, this week announced a building programme for secondary schools. He obviously hopes it will take care of the needs of the next five years. It will cost, on average, Sl5 million a year. This is a formidable, though not spectacular, building programme; and the Government can fairly claim to be moving vigorously to meet the ever-increasing demand for school buildings. Last year it built 516 new and permanent classrooms for primary schools and put up a further 87 temporary rooms; two or more classrooms became available, on average, every working day. Another 300 classrooms were built for secondary schools and this year’s programme provides for more than twice that number. Parliament’s vote for primary and secondary school buildings and for teachers colleges has been running at $2O million a year. In view of Mr Kinsella’s latest announcement and the $27 million programme for teachers’ college buildings from 1968 to 1973 (more than $5 million a year) the vote must rise considerably. Furthermore, the 1969 vote for technical institute buildings is only half the average of $6 million a year approved in principle by the Government for this sector of education.

1 jist year the sum spent on buildings and land for education was below the record level of 1967-68. The decline was attributable mainly to delays in university building. This year’s vote for education should make 1969-70 the record year for education building—even allowing for increases in the cost of building. Of nearly $2OO million to be spent on education, more than $35 million has been allotted to school, technical institute, and university building. Impressive as this sum may seem, it will not be sufficient to maintain the programme of works already envisaged by the Government as necessary to meet the demand for education buildings in the immediate future. Next year’s vote, and the diversion of building resources for education building, will have to be even greater.