O’Keeffe offers developers school build-and-lease plan

THE Government is to ask developers to join a school build-and-lease scheme that could speed up the replacement of crumbling schools and also offer a lifeline to the ailing construction industry.

Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe told the Irish Examiner he is urging developers to build schools that the department would lease for a number of years and then buy.

It is one of a number of measures he is proposing to get more schools off the long waiting list for essential works and maximise the number of projects delivered by the Government’s €4.5 billion school building programme, as set out under the National Development Plan.

“We see it as a stimulation of the construction industry, it’s not going to be easy to kick off but it’s an avenue we’re open to exploring,” said Mr O’Keeffe. “There’s a downturn in construction and my door is open for business. I’m depending on the industry to react.”

The minister is also looking at the option of providing new primary schools through Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangements with developers, who would design and build schools, but not have to maintain them over the lifetime of the contract, as is normal in PPP deals for colleges and second-level schools.

His announcement comes as an international report ranks spending on education — up to and including third level — well below most other developed countries. The report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development shows Ireland needs to spend almost €150m more on education just to match the average allocated from primary to third level in 26 other countries.

It shows while national wealth more than doubled in the decade to 2005, education spending only increased by 81%.

On the day that more than 56,000 students collect their Junior Certificate results, with encouraging grades in maths and science, it also emerged Ireland is 27th out of 29 countries for the amount of national wealth per head of population spent on each second-level student, while primary pupils here are schooled in the second most crowded classes in the EU.

Irish Examiner

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