Rundown Toilets A 'health Hazard' To State's Students

The Age

Wednesday January 31, 2007

JEWEL TOPSFIELD, CANBERRA and DAVID ROOD

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 disturbing 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 an "inexplicable discrepancy" in how public schools were funded by the state governments.

She threatened that unless the states became more accountable in how they allocated the federal funding, she would examine options for bypassing the states and directly funding schools.

Under the Investing in Our Schools program, $700 million will be provided to government schools and $300 million to non-government schools to fund small-scale infrastructure projects.

Ms Bishop said the program marked the first time the Federal Government had heard directly from schools about their funding priorities.

"The inequality is quite startling," she said. "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," Ms Bishop said.

"There seems to be no explicable reason - there must be an agenda."

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. "In the 1990s, the Liberal government spent on average $123 million each year on school capital investment," he said.

"The Bracks Government has spent more than double that amount each year since coming to office ($264 million)."

Mr Lenders said the Victorian Government was modernising and building new state of the art school facilities, and had committed an average of $466 million each year in the next four years for school capital works.

Parents Victoria president Elaine Crowle, who was a member of the Investing in Our Schools program panel, said the list of projects that had been funded showed the State Government had not been adequately providing funds to maintain basic facilities such as toilet blocks.

"Any mum will know that if a child is busting to go to the toilet they can't concentrate on the task at hand," she said.

CASE STUDIES

SOUTH-EASTERN SUBURBS

"The student toilet facilities . . . are in the original style and format as when the (school) was constructed in 1965. Several student focus group meetings were held during 2004 . . . Students told the focus group leaders that many students resisted the need to go to the student toilets during the school day and waited until they were home. This is a most unhealthy practice."

GEELONG REGION

"The . . . carpets within the three classrooms, multipurpose room and the administration area are very poor. The carpet is threadbare and lifting in places and is causing students, staff and visitors to trip. The carpet in the junior room is old ... and with the students constantly sitting on the floor for group work and discussions makes this environment uncomfortable for these activities."

SOUTH-EASTERN SUBURBS

"Our playground equipment is sadly out of date and much has been removed because of safety concerns ... The roof leaks regularly. We have tried many times to fix it ... It is fixed in one place and then starts leaking somewhere else. It ends up leaking in particular places which have not been able to be fixed."

SOURCE: Applications to the Investing in Our Schools fund

© 2007 The Age

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