Demountable Classroom Logic !

Schools have long been a political battleground in ever growing Sydney.  We create new suburbs to house our growing numbers and that creates pressure on the transport system to move them to employment sources and for new schools to accommodate their children.  The problem is that suburbs tend to change their identity within a couple of decades and what is provided for one era becomes surplus in another.

We have all seen suburbs popular with young families change character as the kids grow up, finish their schooling and enter the workforce.  Streets that were once full of kids playing at weekends no longer have that activity.  The suburb changes character and now becomes the residential home for middle aged people heading towards retirement, and that is a huge challenge for government planners.

There is a very logical preference in school planning for the use of demountable classrooms as opposed to permanent school buildings.  These demountables can speedily provide the classrooms needed as suburban numbers grow and can be moved to new locations when that demand declines. That is the degree of flexibility evident in todays school planning.

Permanent brick and mortar school buildings have a budget of $4.2 billion to be spent in the next four years and this will be concentrated where the new transport lines will provide mobility and there is the expectation that high rise will provide living density.  There is the expectation that more Sydney families will live in high rise blocks in the future and that child numbers will remain high in such suburbs.

The New South Wales education system presently has five thousand one hundred demountable classrooms in use.   There is the expectation that school numbers will rise by 175,000 extra children by 2030.  These children will be accommodated with an increase in the demountable stock to six thousand one hundred units between next year and 2020.

Some parents have a very unreasonable distaste for demountables.   They prefer multi room school brick and mortar blocks from their own childhood, but that inflexibility is no longer relevant to todays changing needs.   The demountable - with attached air conditioning - can quickly expand to serve the numbers needed and can be moved from place to place as those numbers change.

We have seen a past era where brick and mortar schools were far apart and kids were expected to travel long distances to attend.   The thinking today is to create schools close to where the demand exists and create flexibility so that can change as circumstances change.

Love them or hate them.  Those demountables are the schools of the future !