Debate contribution: Education Infrastructure: Sustainable Investment

Debate contribution by Mr Paul Givan on 12 February 2024.

MLA

Mr Paul Givan

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

12 February 2024

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Ministerial Statements

Heading

Education Infrastructure: Sustainable Investment

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4217673

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Before I make the statement, I want to associate myself with the remarks by the Member for North Antrim in respect of the principal of Dalriada School, Mr Tom Skelton. Since Mr Skelton's sudden passing, I have heard many tributes to him and learned of the very high esteem in which he was held in the community. I was in Ballymoney on Saturday. I look after Dromore Ladies Hockey Club. We were playing Ballymoney, and they asked for a minute's silence to be held. I took part in that as a mark of respect and in tribute to him within that community. I extend my sympathy to the family on that sudden passing and thank the Member for raising it. Today, I am setting out an ambitious vision for school facilities across Northern Ireland. I believe that there can be no greater investment in our future than investment in education. Children across Northern Ireland have the right to be educated in schools that are comfortable and safe, of good quality and properly designed and resourced to support their learning. Over the next decade, we need to transform our school buildings so that they are truly fit for the future and can provide the best possible education experience for our young people. However, this will require a significant step change in the level of capital investment and in the pace and scale of delivery. The willingness of the Executive to fund such a programme will be an acid test of their commitment to invest in the future of our most valuable resource. The facts are incontrovertible. International research is clear that the learning environment can impact positively on teaching approaches, health and well-being and student outcomes. We know that being taught in school buildings that are in poor condition has an adverse effect on attainment, motivation and enthusiasm and, most importantly, restricts the delivery of a modern school curriculum. Our teachers cannot foster the skills that our young people need for the 21st century in crumbling buildings with poor facilities that were designed and built 60, 70 or 80-plus years ago. Our children need schools with specialist facilities to allow access to a modern curriculum that includes digital skills, technology, science and a wide range of practical subjects, from PE and drama to home economics and beyond. To support our young people to develop a love of sport and exercise and to combat societal issues like childhood obesity, we need not just sports halls but good-quality pitches. For many children, school is their only opportunity to play outside safely. Promoting high-quality play for our youngest learners requires investment in outdoor equipment and facilities. The recent and rapid growth in the number of children with special educational needs (SEN) requires the largest increase in school capacity for two generations. The number of pupils with statements of special educational needs has increased from 19,000 in 2019 to just over 24,000 pupils currently. That is 5,000 additional children who require placements. To meet that demand, we need to more than double special educational needs places over the coming years. With the support of the Executive, I am committed to delivering on that ambition.

If we seize the opportunity now, we have the opportunity to transform our school estate. Working together, we have the opportunity to demonstrate to people across Northern Ireland what can be achieved, but, to do that, we must not just tell them but show them through our spending that we are investing in the future of our children. Our young people are our promise. We must show them that we are committed to delivering a modern, fit-for-purpose education system that truly meets the needs of our society and our pupils in the 21st century. We have inherited a difficult situation. In recent years, Education capital budgets have stood still, while construction costs have spiralled by over 30%. High inflation in construction prices has significantly eroded the Department's spending power, so that the current year's capital budget for Education has been wholly insufficient to meet even the most inescapable needs. We have an ageing and dispersed estate of over 1,100 schools with rapidly escalating maintenance needs due to historic underinvestment. The consequences of a 15-year backlog in planned maintenance across the schools estate are now being felt acutely. Many mid-20th-century schools have reached the end of their shelf life and are, quite simply, no longer fit for purpose. Every day, departmental officials receive unprecedented emergency requests to replace boilers, heating and electrical and other vital materials, such as canteen equipment to provide school dinners. Those works are required to simply keep schools open. Last week, one of my first visits as Minister was to Glenwood Primary School on the Shankill Road. The school does fantastic work in challenging circumstances. However, crumbling wall ties in the ageing buildings have presented an imminent risk of collapse and require emergency works to ensure that the children and teachers are safe. That type of problem is repeated in countless schools across Northern Ireland. The large and unprecedented growth in the number of children with complex special educational needs has placed an unsustainable pressure on my Department's capital budget and overtaken all previous planning assumptions, yet not a single additional pound of capital funding has been provided to my Department for additional special needs placements. Instead, this year, the education sector faced an 8% reduction in its executive capital funding. Over half the Education capital budget was spent on SEN placements and emergency and statutory works. The Assembly must be clear.: education cannot continue with current levels of capital funding. We are at risk even in the most basic requirements to keep schools open, keep children safe and provide places for our most vulnerable learners. Substantial additional investment is therefore urgently required, and I will make the case for sustained capital investment in our education infrastructure. I am conscious of the competing public expenditure pressures across government, but what is more important than the future of our children? I want to maximise the bang for the buck of every pound spent. I want to signal a new approach to investment in our schools. I want to end the game of winners and losers, where there are great facilities and opportunities for some but where the majority make do and mend. Let me be clear about this: that approach is not acceptable to me, and it is going to change. My officials have submitted funding bids of £528 million to the Department of Finance to meet Education capital needs next year. As an absolute minimum, I will require an additional £100 million of capital above the draft Budget allocation to meet pressures in regard to special educational needs placements. That will provide essential schools for our most vulnerable children. Without it, we will not just stand still but may fall backwards. That will be an important first step. However, additional investment will need to be sustained and, indeed, increased over the next decade in order to build two new special schools, expand the existing special school sector and provide many hundreds of specialist units in mainstream schools.

Good planning and sound investment decisions require certainty and stability around future funding levels. Across my Department's capital programmes, in every constituency and school sector, there is a wide range of much-needed investment projects that urgently need to be delivered. There is not a moment to lose. That is why, to begin the process, I have instructed my officials to lift the pause that was imposed, in the absence of a Minister, on a number of new-build projects for schools in the worst conditions that were announced by my predecessor. That will ensure a pipeline of investment for future years. I will shortly bring to the Executive proposals for investment in the Strule Shared Education Campus in Omagh. That visionary and unique campus will bring together six schools and over 4,000 children on a cross-community basis on a shared site. It will be a regional and international exemplar of shared education. My officials are finalising work on the full business case, and a potential contractor is in place. However, without ring-fenced additional investment, this innovative project, which will transform education provision for all the children of Omagh, may not be able to proceed. We should recall that the UK Government's £3·3 billion funding package for the Executive includes £150 million of the Fresh Start capital funding that was previously ring-fenced for shared and integrated capital projects. I am clear that, if they are serious about delivering the project, the Executive need to recommit that funding to the education sector as a matter of the utmost urgency. As I visit schools and meet principals over the coming weeks, I will talk to them about the types of capital investment that will make a real difference to children's learning. It is not necessarily all about large new buildings. Instead, I want to bring forward a greater range of parallel streams of investment to improve classrooms, outdoor spaces, sports facilities and, above all, curriculum-led projects to support teaching and learning, so that every child feels the benefits of the investment that we make. High-impact and relatively low-cost projects to create effective outdoor learning environments or bespoke well-being spaces can make a lasting improvement to everyday life in a school. I have therefore commissioned my officials to develop, as a matter of priority, a capital investment strategy for education that sets out a compelling vision for a responsive, agile and innovative programme of capital investment that is clearly aligned to wider education and Executive policy. Capital investment of varying scope and scale will be a key driver of innovation across the education system, capital investment to reshape education provision, support the improvement of the quality of learning outcomes, tackle disadvantage and promote health and well-being. We must remember that schools offer opportunities for new and better facilities that can be used by all local people. That has the most profound benefits in our disadvantaged communities. Investment in the schools estate can embed a wider, place-based approach to improve local outcomes. I hope to work collaboratively across government to utilise schools to coordinate and integrate local services to support communities. I want our schools to be a central focus of their community and the community to be part of the school. That approach will tackle the cycle of multigenerational disadvantage. The new and ambitious investment strategy for education will make a key contribution to a wider Executive programme of well-targeted capital investment to boost employment, support economic recovery and generate regional growth. Our education system has reached a critical juncture. This is a moment of decision and a moment of truth. On one path, there is a real danger of our children being left behind in facilities from a previous century in damp, mouldy classrooms; our most vulnerable learners being without the equipment to meet their most basic needs; and demoralised teachers in decrepit, unfit buildings. On the other hand, I offer the vision of an education system in which every child benefits from improved facilities and is educated in a high-quality learning environment by motivated teachers with the facilities and resources to deliver a modern curriculum.

If we are to meet our children's expectations, we must invest in our school buildings as a key part of the Executive’s long-term economic plan. That is not a goal or ambition that I can deliver on my own. That is why I ask Members to support me here and at the Executive table in prioritising investment in the future of our society in order to build an education estate that is worthy of our children, our excellent teachers and our ambitions for a prosperous and dynamic Northern Ireland. I commend the statement to the House.

1,967 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not qualifying

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:35 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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