Teachers welcome ‘value’ buildings

PLANS to get better value on school buildings have been welcomed by teachers but they warned against the burden for improvements being placed on schools and staff.

The Irish Examiner last week revealed plans by Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe to seek more competitive prices on all projects funded by his department’s school building programme. The measures include a number of initiatives involving devolved grants given to schools, allowing them to directly manage their own projects.

He wants school boards to seek much more competitive prices than were being charged last year and also wants them to insist on reduced fees by architects.

The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) said Mr O’Keeffe’s proposals to find savings in the building programme which would sanction more projects is a positive development. But the union’s general secretary John Carr said responsibility could not just be shifted onto school boards or principals.

“Any money saved in architectural and other fees should be paid as a management fee to boards or the principals who have managed this type of project for several years with no financial recompense,” he said.

Mr O’Keeffe has also called on developers with sites in areas where schools are needed to build schools which the State would then lease for a number of years and later purchase.

The Construction Industry Federation said last week it is willing to discuss any proposals to boost falling employment in the sector and help bring the school building programme forward.

Department of Education officials are also looking at the possibility of a design-and-build model of public private partnership (PPP) contract, in a variation of the model used already for colleges and second level schools where the private company also provides maintenance of the building over the lifetime of the agreement.

However, advice to Mr O’Keeffe so far has been that the cost, even though spread over a 20- to 25-year period, would have to be added to government borrowings.

The next bundle of PPP schools to begin construction includes two schools in Portlaoise, Co Laois, and two in Banagher and Ferbane, Co Offaly.

Mr O’Keeffe expects work to begin on all four before the end of the year and to be completed in early 2010.

Another group of schools to be included under one contract was offered to the market last May and are expected to be ready by mid-2012, five second level schools and one primary school in Cork, Kildare, Limerick, and Meath.