State schools lag in race for new classrooms
20th April 2010
State schools lag in race for new classrooms
NATALIE CRAIG
April 18, 2010TWO Victorian primary schools - one Catholic, one government - were last year given almost $1 million under the federal government's Building the Education Revolution scheme.
The Catholic school had complete control of its design and construction. The state school was forced to chose from design templates, and the Victorian Education Department tendered for builders.
At the state school, there's still an empty space where portable classrooms were removed nine months ago. The Catholic school has just moved into its ultra-modern complex.
''We're delighted - the process has been swift and cost-effective,'' said Brendan Maher, principal at the Emmaus Catholic Primary School, at Mount Clear, near Ballarat. The school used its $850,000 grant, awarded last April, to build a three-classroom, energy-efficient building with break-out spaces and moveable walls, then borrowed $150,000 for enhancements, such as a sound-proof podcasting room.
It's a stark contrast to the experience of Seville Primary School, a state school east of Melbourne. It was required by the government to choose from a range of templates with its $900,000 funding, also allocated in April. It opted for a three-classroom building in a ''wagon-wheel'' shape. It is still waiting.
''We've been so badly delayed that our school council want to erect a canvas awning over the site that's now cleared and put up a sign that says 'This is the Classroom of the 21st Century','' principal Pat Hillas said.
Now the Victorian government, which administers the state's federal funding, is offering Seville Primary a generic, modular structure, built in a factory and assembled onsite. Delivery is expected in August or September.
It is all the school can afford after building tenders for their original complex came in well above original estimates.
Victorian Education Minister Bronwyn Pike said last week that the lesson to be learned from the controversial BER scheme - now the subject of a federal taskforce - was that state school principals had been given too much input regarding their projects.
But state school principals say construction would have been faster and cheaper had they been given the power to work with architects and tender projects.
Coldstream Primary School, east of Melbourne, will also receive a prefabricated modular building after tenders for the initial bricks-and-mortar classroom were too costly. Principal Peter Donaldson said a local builder could have done the project on time and on budget. ''We actually had a guy who was able to do it ... because the projects went to big builders, [we think] they haven't really been that keen to do smaller projects like ours, so the quotes have come in high.''
The Victorian and federal governments refuse to release estimates for BER projects. In New South Wales, publication of such details has fuelled accusations of builders and bureaucrats inflating costs.
Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard last week launched a $14 million taskforce to investigate allegations of price rorting, which will deliver its first findings in three months.
A spokesman for the Victorian Department of Education declined to comment on costs. He said about 90 smaller schools would get modular buildings, which would be more economical than traditional construction.
Production and assembly for the first group of schools should be finished as early as May.
Opposition education spokesman Martin Dixon said bureaucratic ideals were being favoured over local needs: ''If schools had been trusted to handle the projects themselves, they wouldn't have to go through the drawn-out process and the downgrading of projects.''
Melbourne Catholic Education director Stephen Elder said Catholic principals had been given flexibility to choose builders with competitive prices. ''In some cases, quotes came in under the expected costs, sometimes they were spot on, and occasionally a little bit over ... That experience has been no different than in any other capital works we've overseen.''
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