Classroom asbestos warning as ministers at nighttime over threat at 1,000 faculties

Education chiefs have no idea the chance posed by asbestos in virtually 1,000 faculties, MPs have warned.

The Public Accounts Committee discovered 700,000 pupils are studying in faculties that want main rebuilding or refurbishment. It warned that the deterioration of faculty buildings is resulting in a worrying influence on kids’s studying, which is affecting their grades.

In a report it stated it’s “extremely concerned” that the Department for Education doesn’t have a ok understanding of the dangers at school buildings to maintain pupils and lecturers protected. The Commons committee stated the Government had been unable to say what number of surveys to determine RAAC, the concrete liable to crumbling, have been excellent or what number of non permanent lecture rooms had been offered to affected faculties.

The MPs additionally demanded that officers get a full image of the issue of asbestos in faculties nationwide. It nonetheless doesn’t have responses to the asbestos administration survey it launch in 2018 from 4% of faculties, which is sort of 1,000. Around 11 lecturers or ex-teachers have died from asbestos-related situations every year since 2011, in accordance with information from the Health and Safety Executive.

Dame Meg Hillier, the chair of the committee, stated: “A significant proportion of children in this country are learning in dilapidated or unsafe buildings. This is clearly beyond unacceptable.”

The Labour MP added: “The images of classroom ceilings collapsed onto empty school desks released in recent months are not just searing indictments of a deteriorating school estate. They are chilling reminders of absolute catastrophe averted through sheer luck. Given the poor condition of so many of these buildings, the Government’s prime challenge now is to keep the safety of children and staff absolutely paramount.”