School buildings crisis: Minister says most schools not affected | Beyond The Headlines

good evening if you don't hear from us
don't worry that's the message to
parents from the education secretary
Jillian Keegan tonight after 104 schools
nurseries and colleges were told to
close buildings made with aerated
concrete a concrete that's prone to
collapse now the order comes just days
before the start of term with thousands
of students likely to face disruption
now 14 to 900 schools in England were
built between 1930 and 1990 which is
when reinforced autoclaved aerated
concrete known as rack was first used in
construction as of May 2023 only 42
percent had carried out inspections to
identify the potentially dangerous
material now measures were already in
place to carry out work at 50 schools
but though these 100 others were only
notified today
some children will be moved to another
part of the building some of the
buildings will be propped up so the
rules will be propped up some of them
will be having a temporary classroom so
we've got a number of different things
that we've been working on to to
mitigate and to minimize the disruption
as much as possible for parents and for
children the school will be in touch
it's 156 out of our 22 and a half
thousand schools so for most people you
won't be affected
it's absolutely shocking that just as
schools are about to return just as
children are about to go back for the
new term that ministers announce this
major problem affecting so many of our
schools but they're still not being
upfront about it they should publish
that full list come clean to parents and
make sure that all of our children can
avoid this kind of disruption that
they've already faced so much lost
learning this has to be different
we'll our chief political correspondent
John Craig joins us now so John look
just days before the start of turn this
is quite a mess well you could say that
all those poor people stranded in the
foreign airports because of no no
flights back home didn't worry because
the schools are not going to be open so
they don't have to go back to school but
seriously the critics are going to say
this is yet another example of broken
Britain no flights no trains strikes in
the NHS and now the schools are closed
this of course as Bridget Phillipson was
saying they've already faced disruption
because of covid we've had the exams
Fiasco under Gavin Williamson some are
suggesting that this is the sort of
fiasco we saw under Mr Williamson when
he was the education secretary it's not
as though the government wasn't warned
the National Audit office warned about
this they've been all sorts of studies
and reports there was a school in Kent
in 2018 when the roof collapsed and uh
the as you might imagine the T teaching
unions and local government bosses are
Furious the National Association have
had teachers their boss Paul Whiteman
has said this is shocking but it's not
surprising he blames a decade of
swinging Cuts something I'm sure the
government would dispute the local
government Association has produced
various figures saying that a third of
schools could be in danger here
um it does point to failings clearly in
local government probably and the
department for education
we've been talking about reshuffles
today
Jillian Keegan is the sixth education
secretary since the 2019 election uh so
clearly that department is not
functioning properly given all the
problems with exams and so on but the
real serious problem here is the
disruption to children's education after
the covid pandemic and the fact that
parents have only got what two or three
days notice census to why they've left
it so long because as you rightly point
out they've known for at least the
summer that this was going to be a
problem and Julian Keegan when she was
speaking to us earlier said that she's
still waiting for some surveys to come
back so it could worsen I think what's
prompted Jillian Keegan to put her hands
up and say where we messed up here is
that there have been one or two reports
that this this was going to uh this was
going to happen this problem was going
to arise it's Dreadful news for parents
and more uncertainty and it's more
disruption of children's education and
critics will say it's the sort of thing
that should have been sorted out a long
time ago absolutely