Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/509/3380
From The Socialist newspaper, 8 November 2007
New schools but not enough rooms
ON THE same day that a Financial Times article complained about Private Finance Initiative-funded schools being built as "unimpressive brick boxes with tiny windows and mean corridors" I was called by a Lewisham NUT school rep to visit their new PFI school.
Martin Powell-Davies, Lewisham National Union of Teachers
The school is due to move into its new building in January. However, the school has tried to timetable lessons for next term – and found there simply aren't enough rooms in the new building.
Negotiations are continuing with the contractor and local authority, but there's even the prospect of having to put portakabins in the playground of the school's brand new building!
Unfortunately, these tales are nothing new. Contractors are reaping huge profits while pursuing every loophole in the inadequate building regulations to cut corners and provide the minimum space they can get away with.
CABE (the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment) reported last year that half of new schools they surveyed were 'poor' or 'mediocre'. Nine of the ten worst schools were built using PFI money – and of course local authorities will be paying for this dubious privilege through payments to the contractor for decades to come.
The fact is, while the headline figures for additional capital expenditure on new school buildings make good headlines for government spin-doctors, the money isn't enough to deliver the high-quality provision all our children deserve.
As Seamus Milne, writing in the guardian about PFI in the NHS asked: "Given the evidence on cost and inefficiency, and its unpopularity among staff and voters, the government's determination to press on with privatisation and marketisation might seem baffling".
Unfortunately, as he concluded, it can be explained by "market dogma and business lobbying". Trade unions such as the NUT have a responsibility to expose how our schools, staff and school students are being sold short once again.
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In The Socialist 8 November 2007:
Sick of the profit system? Come to Socialism 2007
Socialist Party workplace news
PCS backs further strike action
Build the left in the public-sector trade unions
International socialist news and analysis
Martial law imposed in Pakistan
Israel: Café waiters' strike victory
Free detained Nigerian students
Socialist Party news and analysis
'Competition' dominated by a few giants
Corporate crime: Sign of an out-of-control economy
Jean Charles de Menezes: Unanswered questions after court case
Why Prince of mortgages resigned
Socialist Party NHS campaign
Don't just 'celebrate' the NHS - fight back
Staff shortages cause stress and anger
Support strikers at Northern General Hospital
Health workers strike against sacking
Education feature
Education, Education, Education
New schools but not enough rooms
NUT elections: "What are we waiting for?"
Workplace news
Fight Royal Mail victimisation
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