Politics: Blunkett promises to take schools out of the Victorian era

AN END was declared yesterday to the "scandal" of schools with Victorian outside lavatories.

David Blunkett, Secretary of State for Education, announced a pounds 35m package to give all schools "the decent facility that every school should have".

The money is part of a pounds 90m building programme for schools. It will include pounds 40m to open up new classroom space to help meet the Government's pledges on class sizes and pounds 15m to replace out of date heating systems, a major cause of winter school closures.

Mr Blunkett announced the package in the Commons as he outlined plans for spending the pounds 250m promised for education in Tuesday's Budget.

He said: "We will bring to an end the scandal whereby children in 600 of our schools, most of them primary, still have to go outside in order to use the toilets.

"Tens of thousands of children have to go outside to use facilities which often date back to the Victorian age. That is simply unacceptable in the last years of the 20th century.

"By next year, we will have ended the scandal of outside toilets forever. It will take our schools from the Victorian age into the age of the new millennium."

Mr Blunkett said the money was in addition to the pounds 1.3bn promised over the lifetime of the Parliament to tackle repairs in schools.

He said: "This extra funding will help us to deliver our core pledge on class sizes. Doing so will help us to meet our demanding literacy and numeracy targets."

But Liberal Democrat education spokesman Don Foster said inflation forecasts would wipe out any chance of real improvements in school funding. He said: "The Government is right to allocate pounds 35m to deal with the legacy of the previous government which forces school children to use outside toilets. However, the Chancellor's failure to provide any more cash despite his growing war chest leaves the real issues facing schools unresolved."

Teachers' leaders welcomed the announcement, but warned that yesterday's announcement still left schools with an estimated pounds 3 bn school repair backlog.

David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said he was delighted at the removal of the "last remnants of the Victorian age".

Doug McAvoy, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said the move was a "step in the right direction, but only a step". He added: "Outside toilets are a breeding ground for germs and diseases and much educational time is lost because of the problems they create. Schools also lose a lot of time because of they are too cold to work in."

Six hundred schools, many in inner London and rural areas, still have outside lavatories. Officials estimate that one in five schools also have boilers over 20 years old. Ministers hope the work can be done within the next financial year.