Former education minister Chris Hipkins says a Wellington high school has been "treated poorly" by the Ministry of Education.
Wellington Girls' College principal Julia Davidson found out part of one of their classroom blocks was an earthquake risk in April.
The Ministry of Education had been aware the building was a potential earthquake risk since they completed a review in 2020.
Wellington Girls' students were remotely working while school staff planned where 360 students and staff that used the building space will be moved to.
Asked about the situation on Breakfast this morning, Labour leader Chris Hipkins said: "I can tell you as a former minister of education that I'm really sorry for the way the Ministry of Education have handled this.
"It doesn't meet the expectations that I had for them as minister, I'm sure it doesn't meet the current minister's expectations either.
"I do think that the Ministry has been far too slow to share the information they have with the schools and to put alternative plans in place," the leader of the opposition continued.
Davidson said the school found out about the classification only when they requested information on the business case from the Ministry of Education for their school to be rebuilt.
Ministry of Education head of property Sam Fowler said the school was informed of the buildings' earthquake risk in documentation, although the school refuted this information was communicated clearly, if at all.
Onslow College said it faced a similar situation.
Hipkins said: "I think that students and the parents and the teachers and the school board have an absolute legitimate claim to say that they've been treated really poorly here. I think they have been."
And he said the current Government had shifted the focus in the area.
"During our government, we put a lot of extra money into upgrading school buildings and that included tearing a lot down," Hipkins said.
"The new Government very explicitly told the Ministry of Education that they want them to refocus from replacing buildings to simply patching them up, they've actually given the Ministry of Education that instruction.
"So that responsibility does sit squarely with the current Government rather than with the Ministry.
"The Ministry are acting under orders from the Government to patch up buildings rather than replace them – and I think Wellington Girls' is a really interesting and challenging project," he added.
Hipkins explained that the school sits on a relatively small and "pretty complex" site, right in the middle of the city.
"I think that it may well be that they're gonna need to really pull out all the stops, they might have to find some temporary accommodation elsewhere for a large proportion of the school while they actually get the situation under control.
"And I think they really need to pick up the pace and do that as quickly as they can."
Fowler said the ministry has apologised to both schools over what occurred.
"It is really important that we provide clear and accurate information to these schools to enable them to make informed decisions and if there has at any point been a lack of communication, and I would certainly recognise in these instances that communication could have been better, that is an issue that we need to take up as a Ministry and improve on," he said.
Fowler said ministry staff would be reminded of the importance of communicating with schools face to face, over the phone and in written correspondence to ensure they were well informed.
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