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By Margot Miller
Approximately 700,000 children attend schools in England that need major renovations or rebuilding, according to a damning report released by the National Audit Office (NAO).
A shocking 38 percent of school buildings have surpassed their expected life span. Many, constructed cheaply over a three-decade period starting in the 1950s using RAAC, could crumble without warning. Of these, nearly 600 need urgent structural examinations. For quite some time, the Conservative government and education unions, along with the Labour Party, have been conscious of the perils that dilapidated buildings pose to pupils and faculty. Parts of roofs have already given way; however, repairs are progressing very slowly.
Following the discovery of serious structural issues in five schools in the year to October 2021, the Department for Education raised the risk of building collapse from “critical-likely” to “critical-very likely” in March 2022.
St Anne’s in Liverpool, Fearnville Primary in Bradford, where a teacher was hospitalized after being hit by a falling ceiling tile, and Fortis Academy in Birmingham were among the schools closed for a long-term rebuild.
A parent was injured when cladding fell off the roof of Dore Primary School in Sheffield. A 12-15-foot-long fascia board with 4-inch nails fell and hit her on the head. The parent required an MRI scan and had to take three weeks off work.
The Institute of Structural Engineers warned about concrete used on roofs at four Kent schools on June 16. RAAC was also found in the ceilings of Mistley Norman Church of England, Hockley primary school in Essex, and two schools run by Bishop Bewick Catholic Education Trust in the north-east in June.
As far back as 2018, Singlewell Primary School in Gravesend’s roof partially collapsed, but fortunately at the weekend there were no casualties. It is especially concerning that the roof showed signs of stress just 24 hours before the incident. As a result of this potential tragedy, the Standing Committee on Structural Safety issued a safety alert on the “failure of RAAC planks,” recommending that those that were installed before 1980 be replaced.
RAAC is a less expensive alternative to concrete, used frequently in school architecture for walls, floors and roofs. Professor Chris Goodier, an authority on construction materials, claims it is an aerated lightweight cement without large particles. He describes its characteristics and structural behaviour to be contrary to those of reinforced concrete. RAAC is filled with air pockets and loses strength when wet, unlike regular concrete which is more resilient.
The BRE research group declared RAAC life-expiring after 30 years in 1982, after ending production in the UK amid safety concerns. Hospitals and many public buildings in the UK used the material, and it is still used in China, central Asia, India and the Middle East.
RAAC can be an appropriate construction material if properly designed, manufactured, installed and maintained, according to Goodier, who leads a major research project funded by the NHS. According to our research, this is often not the case with RAAC panels built between 1950 and 1970. DfE records do not indicate which schools used RAAC panels.
As a result of a school safety incident in late 2018, the National Audit Office reported that the Department for Education has been considering reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC)-a lightweight concrete that can fail-as a potential issue.
The DfE has attempted to shift responsibility onto schools by issuing warning notes and expanding their data collection programme, as well as a guide on identifying RAAC. Furthermore, in March 2022 schools received a questionnaire asking if any RAAC was present in their buildings. Though visual inspections are carried out to locate RAAC, more time-consuming and costly structural inspections would provide a more certain result, these inspections can be disruptive.
The report reveals that remedial work is still mainly at the assessment stage five years after the initial safety incident. Although the Department for Education has made some progress in the last year, it lacks comprehensive information about the extent and severity of potential safety problems across the school estate.
In May 2023, only 42 percent of 14,900 schools built between 1930 and 1990 had identified RAAC in their buildings. In May, the DfE pledged to provide funding for remedial work in schools where RAAC poses a direct threat. The DfE has identified 572 schools as having RAAC, with 24 requiring immediate action.
The DfE considers the safety threat in school sites a serious risk, yet NAO found there was an insufficient capital budget to address structural issues exacerbating the severity of that very same risk. To maintain schools and reduce the riskiest cases of building failure, £5.3 billion is necessary each year – however, only £2.3 billion was spent in this scope between 2016-17 and 2022-23.
As a result of successive government austerity measures, school building capital spending has declined by 50 percent in real terms since 2010. As a result, the public debt has piled higher ever since as corporate bailouts during the pandemic and NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine have soared.
The report highlighted the dangers of asbestos used in 13,800 “system-built” school blocks, with over a quarter thought to be in a weakened condition. The DfE has only granted plans to survey 200, and has failed to find staff with the appropriate expertise. According to the National Education Union (NEU), 300 school personnel have died from mesothelioma since 2001, caused by exposure to asbestos. It is believed that 10,000 pupils and educators have been tragically lost from school-related asbestos over the last 40 years.
It will prove as toothless as every other government inquiry. Each Whitehall department has been asked to assign one civil servant to locate RAAC in public buildings.
According to Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the NEU, “If we are to prevent something catastrophic from happening, such as a building collapse, and to finally get to grips with the hidden killer asbestos in our schools, action must be taken—and significant funding put in place.”
An already devastating situation was made worse when unions affiliated with the NEU collaborated with Johnson’s administration to get staff and pupils into unable-to-protect environments during the outbreak of COVID. This irresponsible decision has destroyed lives and made its mark in a number of ways. For example, those who contracted this virus now present with ailments such as lack of focus along with an elevation in type 1 diabetes cases. This particular illness is believed to be connected to the immunity system, which can be altered by coronavirus.
In February, the NEU, NASUWT, Unison, Unite, GMB and Community wrote an open letter to Education Secretary Gillian Keegan highlighting the “shocking” state of schools that could end up “costing lives”, asking the government what action it was taking to eradicate the risk of building collapse.
School safety will not be ensured by unions unless they make futile appeals to the government. As they try to resolve the teachers’ dispute over pay, workload and funding, they are making clear that if the government meets them and accepts their services, they will accept a pay offer below inflation.
If the working class is not organized in its own independent Rank-and-File Committees, schools will remain potential deathtraps. For more information, contact the Educators Rank-and-File Committee.
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