Over 100 schools in England have been ordered to close because they were constructed in the twentieth century using materials that are suddenly catastrophically failing.
Traditionalists understand that certain materials and procedures have endured through the ages because they have been proven successful and reliable, but in the twentieth century, a rush for development saw new techniques and wonder materials that were considered to be cheaper and simpler to work with replaced instead.
One unintended consequence of this brave new world of construction is the now-better-understood short lifespan and inherent flaws of some types of concrete, which is thought to be present in hundreds of schools around the United Kingdom.
The British government ordered the closure of 104 schools on Thursday, just days before the start of the new academic year, due to the possibility that their structures will fall unexpectedly.
These are buildings with roofs built of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), a unique building material that was widely employed in new flat-roof government buildings between the 1960s and the 1990s.
RAAC, unlike normal concrete, was manufactured in a factory, employing chemical reactions to develop microscopic air bubbles inside the form, making the material significantly lighter and cheaper. While this made the slabs significantly weaker, steel reinforcing bars allowed the product to work properly.
Despite the furore surrounding the order issued on Thursday, as of Friday morning many parents had not yet been informed whether their children’s school was among those impacted, reported the Daily Telegraph.
A further compounding factor is the government does not know exactly how many schools actually have RAAC in their fabric, as there is no central register of such buildings and identifying them has relied on schools self-assessing their own buildings in response to a government questionnaire, but it is believed hundreds of schools could be impacted in some way.
The government has blamed the sudden move to close impacted schools now on those surveys, which it says saw a series of RAAC cases being revealed over the summer, forcing them to act.
Minister Nick Gibb said Friday morning that the decision could not have been taken any sooner, and that: “We took the decision as soon as the evidence emerged, we were proactively seeking that evidence, unlike any other government around the world. We take this issue very seriously.”