School building scheme a sham

[Gibbo]

Government promises to rebuild or refurbish almost every secondary school in England have been labelled a sham after MPs discovered one in five projects have only provided schools with new computers.

 

Nine of the 41 BSF projects completed last year amounted to little more than installing a new computer suite rather than a full-scale rebuild or refurbishment, the Liberal Democrats have revealed.

 

School building scheme a sham ? MPs | Education | guardian.co.uk

[GrumbleDook]

Wahey ... selective reporting again!!!

 

Schools that have recently been rebuilt (within 5 years of the application for BSF wave in that LA IIRC) can sometimes get access to more funds from the managed services contract for ICT or for some additional work if the 'rebuild' was actually just a few building changes and refurb.

 

I am sure that if this wasn't done you would have MPs and papers screaming that because the school was dealt with out of LA or other funds it was being "intentionally excluded from possible improvements, and so harming the education of our children!"

 

It is all spin folks ... I would have been more impressed if they had listed the schools and LAs, spoken about what investment had already been made to those schools, said how many were PFI or Academy programs or other schemes not directly funded by Central Govt ... and then if they also talked about how much or little improvement in these schools there had been ... Then I would say it would have made an interesting article. Then again, perhaps factually interesting stuff doesn't sell as many papers.

[broc]

I agree with Grumbledook, this is a no-news story...... if the press (& Liberal Democrats) had bothered to check their facts they would have found this information included in the various statements made by those LAs involved in the waves of BSF that have actually delivered so far, I know it was in at least two LAs near me.

 

I think the only thing the Govt can be accused of is slightly inflating the number of BSF schools that are counted as 'completed', otherwise the numbers would be even more depressing.