Perspective
UNESCO’s World Education Report 2000 notes ‘The right to education is the most important rights proclaimed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, because education is considered by the Declaration to be not only a right in itself but also a means of promoting peace and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms generally’. In order to help citizens acquire this right, Governments have the responsibility to provide the necessary education infrastructure or an enabling environment for non-government stakeholders to build this infrastructure. This education infrastructure which falls within the broader social infrastructure subset includes schools, vocational training and tertiary facilities, and residential student accommodation.
Before the computer and internet revolution age, all that was required was classrooms, teachers, offices, laboratories and well equipped libraries. However, the dramatic technological changes in the last 30 years have brought a whole new set of challenges to governments and educators worldwide. The education infrastructure needs to reflect the key drivers of today’s world including emerging information and communication technologies (ICT), sustainable living and resource conservation. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 2001 report, the growth of the knowledge society and the development and pervasiveness of the emerging information and communication technologies (ICT) represent a major challenge and opportunity for education. While in the developed countries governments have the capital required to provide the computer, internet and teaching resources necessary to successfully integrate ICT and modern technologies into the learning programmes and curricula, this is not the case for developing countries.
Information and communication technologies (ICT)
In the last two decades, many developed countries have made large investments in improving their educational infrastructure by providing more computers and better internet access to schools and other learning institutions. On the other hand, access to computers, internet, relevant e-learning software, qualified and competent teachers and other resources remains a big challenge for the majority of students in the developing countries. Globally several projects have been initiated to address this shortcoming. Examples include initiatives such as ‘One Laptop per child’ and the Khan Academy. These efforts aim to help children gain access to education and enable a more independent self learning process thereby eliminating or minimizing barriers to quality education especially at the basic level. In addition, some countries have launched ambitious projects to address these shortcomings, for example the current US$ 200M National Laptop Project in Kenya that when implemented will supply 1.3 million laptop computers to schools across the country to promote e-learning. Education infrastructure that delivers fully integrated ICT solutions to kids provides the best opportunities for children in remote areas and developing countries to learn from the best in the world and take advantage of the numerous learning resources available through the internet and by collaboration with other schools from advanced economies. This presents a great avenue for governments to achieve universal primary education, the second of the eight United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals.
Sustainable and inspiring learning spaces
At all levels of education, the current benchmarks for best practise in building education infrastructure demand that schools and learning spaces no longer be built to just meet the minimum building code requirements. Learning spaces should be built to provide learners and teachers with the healthiest, most productive and inspiring learning and working environments. A study by the University of Salford and Nightingale Architects in the UK released in 2013 found that the classroom environment can affect a child’s academic progress over a year by as much as 25 percent. Other studies in the United States have also found that innovative, green learning spaces also provide improvements in the health of students and teachers, student learning and productivity and test scores results. Backed by these results, governments, state and local authorities around the world have initiated programmes aimed at ensuring that new developments in education infrastructure are, for example ecologically sustainable, energy efficient and creatively engaging for learners. For example, the Victorian State government’s Education Department has incorporated Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD) guidelines to accompany its Building Quality Standards Handbook. These guidelines establish a common approach for incorporating ESD into the design of Victorian Schools. The guidelines place ESD outcomes for development projects within the context of national best practise, and are linked to Green Star – Education Tool developed by Green Building Council of Australia. This tool is used to assess the environmental impact of a project’s site selection, design, construction and maintenance and there are nine categories in the Green Star Education rating tool including; management, transport, land use and ecology, indoor environment quality, water, emissions, energy, materials and innovation. Similar ESD guidelines are included in the building standards handbooks in other States around Australia. In Queensland for example, seven new schools opened by 2012 under the Aspire Schools consortium (http://education.qld.gov.au/seqschoolsproject/) were built to conform and exceed these requirements and achieved a Greenstar 4 Star Rating by Green Building Council of Australia.
For the higher education and research sector in Australia, the Education Investment Fund (EIF) is tasked with building a modern, productive, internationally competitive Australian economy by supporting world-leading, strategically focussed infrastructure investments that will transform Australian Education and Research. Since its establishment in 2007, EIF has provided funding worth nearly $2.4bn for projects that create significant modern infrastructure in higher education, research and vocational education and training institutions. New facilities built with partial funding from EIF are focussed on providing facilities for student and staff that stimulate, inspire and encourage learning, and provide opportunities for wider social interaction and community well-being. Examples of these modern facilities include QUT’s new Science and Engineering Centre at Garden’s Point and Creative Industries Precinct at Kelvin Grove, UQ’s Advanced Engineering Building at St. Lucia and ANU’s Chemical Sciences Hub amongst others.
In Europe, there is a growing interest in how the design of the built environment in learning institutions affects learning outcomes. Coordinated efforts initiated by European Investment Bank in collaboration with OECD Centre for Effective Learning Environments (CELE) led to the launch of the “Database of Best Practises in Educational Facilities Investment” in 2011. This database seeks to inform the planning, design, construction, management and evaluation of educational spaces, combining resources for strategic investment in educational infrastructure with exemplary school and university facilities from all over the world. The database includes examples of more than 60 exemplary schools and universities showcasing the best in educational facilities.
At Austica, we provide leadership in the education infrastructure sector to deliver the kind of facilities that meets and exceeds these new and exciting ideas for learning environments. We have the practical experience and expertise to design, construct, project manage projects with serious commitment to excellence and commitment to bringing the best ideas to the table. Austica Engineers are highly qualified in all spheres of education infrastructure sectors spanning from Universities, Tertiary Institutions and Schools, and undertake efficient scoping/modelling of the user client’s briefs including those of specialised leaning facilities.