2023-09-04 19:17:54
Tens of thousands of British students were unable to return to school under normal conditions on Monday, September 4, and several thousand simply could not return to school. Last Thursday, the Department for Education imposed emergency measures on 106 English and Welsh schools, following the discovery of faulty concrete in the structure of their buildings.
Many of them did not open their doors. Others have closed access to certain spaces. Some parents testified in the British press to be “demoralized” the idea of their children resuming lessons remotely, as during the pandemic. Not to mention those whose jobs do not allow them to work from home, and who have no recourse until classes resume.
Collapse of a beam in a building in mid-August
The material in question, autoclave-hardened aerated concrete, “is still produced and installed worldwide and can bebe appropriate if it has been properly designed, manufactured, installed and maintained”, explains, on the site of the university of Loughborough, Chris Goodier, professor of construction engineering. “But that doesn’t’has often not been the case for panels built during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.’prolonged infiltration of’Water, not uncommon in old roofs, can also lead to their deterioration. »
The government took a close interest in this concrete following the collapse of the roof of a school in Kent in 2018, which fortunately happened overnight. The Ministry of Education launched a questionnaire in March 2022 to some 20,000 schools in the country to find out the extent of the repairs to be made.
If 1,500 establishments have not yet responded, the administration discovered last March the existence of a serious risk in 52 schools forced to take rapid action. Many of them have thus carried out work during the summer holidays, which last six weeks in England. The collapse of a beam in a building in mid-August will have prompted the government to revise its copy, which resulted in the announcements last Thursday.
Conservatives singled out
If the government thought it could dodge criticism, Jonathan Slater, who was the highest official in the Ministry of Education from 2016 to 2020, accused the conservative majority on Monday morning of being responsible for the delay in the work. “Even if we needed’a budget to repair 300 to 400 schools a year, we only had’a budget for 100 schools, he told the BBC. In 2021, we requested a doubling of the budget. We thought the’obtain but on the contrary our budget has been riché by two and we n’We have since only had the means to repair 50 schools a year! »
He then recalled that Rishi Sunak was the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time. The latter immediately replied that he was “totally false » to hold him responsible for the lack of resources. For its part, the Labor Party has indicated that the budgetary austerity deployed since 2010 by the Conservatives has had as its preferred target investment expenditure, ie the construction and maintenance of buildings and infrastructure. Those of the Ministry of Education have decreased by almost 50% between 2010 and 2022.
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