Rundown Toilets A 'hazard' To Victorian Students
The Age
Wednesday January 31, 2007
TOILETS in some Victorian schools are so decrepit that students are risking their health by "holding on" all day, applications for federal funding obtained by The Age reveal.
Schools also beg in the applications for funding to replace leaking roofs, collapsed ceilings, unsafe surfaces in playgrounds, exposed asbestos, threadbare carpets and decades-old classroom furniture.Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop has seized on the applications to call for greater federal control over how the states spend $690 million a year in capital works funding that is provided by the Commonwealth.One school in Melbourne's north-east said floor coverings in the toilet had lifted and urine had leaked under the lino, posing a health hazard for students."Many children currently will not use the toilets due to their condition - this is an unhealthy practice for them. Unsanitary toilets turn parents away from the school," according to the application for funding under the Federal Government's $1 billion Investing in Our Schools program.Another application from a school in western Victoria said the toilets had not been upgraded since the school opened in 1965. The toilet pans often leaked, the floor was stained and many of the boys in the school were too short to reach the urinal flush.Ms Bishop said she was shocked by the applications, which revealed discrepancies in how public schools were funded by the state governments. "In some of the most disadvantaged areas the state government schools were clearly very poorly resourced and yet in neighbouring suburbs a school was much better resourced," she said. "There seems to be no explicable reason - there must be an agenda." She threatened that unless the states became more accountable, she would examine options for bypassing the states and directly funding schools. Victorian Education Minister John Lenders said the Howard Government was turning capital works funding into a public relations exercise. "Yes, there was a long period of neglect of school maintenance in Victoria - under Ms Bishop's state Liberal colleagues," Mr Lenders said. He said the Bracks Government had more than doubled the amount spent each year on capital investment.Williamstown High School, which is in the electorate of Premier Steve Bracks, received $145,000 in federal funding for toilet refurbishment 18 months ago. Principal Graeme Smith said the toilets had been built in the early 1970s and the refurbishment was long overdue. "Our toilets were adequate, but they were very old, antiquated, unpleasant places to go. For lots of kids they'd prefer not to go," he said.
© 2007 The Age