Jack Tame: Governments alternative plan with school builds

Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive

It's been inevitable for months now that the Ministry of Education would lose responsibility for building and maintaining schools and at first glance the government's onto a winner with its alternative plan.

The review into the state of school facilities shows only a third of the almost-500 building projects in the Ministry of education queue have been fully funded and concludes the average cost of a new classroom could rise to $1.8m over the next few years.

"That is unsustainable," it says. If indeed that price is accurate, you'd be hard pressed to find someone who disagrees.

Obviously not every school is the same, there are different environmental, geological and topographical challenges that distinguish different locations, and no one is expecting a 100% standardized building model for every single classroom across the country.

But a greater degree of standardization makes sense and more than anything, a new system might allow for that most important quality: transparency. At the moment, it's not always clear why some school builds are prioritized over others. Schools are pushed up and down the list at the mercy of political whims.

That can't continue. Schools and school communities need clarity and certainty and any system that can provide that while improving our classroom stock and improving the learning environments for our kids has to be a good thing.

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