Editorial: Some honesty is needed over the inefficiencies in our school provision

​We report on our front page another major looming financial problem in Northern Ireland.

​It relates to the school estate – the buildings that house our many schools, where there is a 30 year backlog of repairs.

The Comptroller and Auditor General Dorinnia Carville has issued a report that has concluded that the Department of Education "does not have a full understanding" of the true condition of the schools estate, which consists of 1,100 schools worth £5 billion.

The department is said to be focused now on keeping schools open and safe. It is not, said the report, “a strategy based upon comprehensive data on the estate's overall condition".

In response to the findings, the DUP education minister Paul Givan said there had been "historic under-investment" in NI schools.

In one sense, this might be true in that you could also say that there is a historic under-investment in health. But that is if you assume that all demands in health and education must be met in full, regardless of their efficiency and merit. But limitless health and education provision is not possible in either sphere.

In health, NI is known to have too many hospitals, causing expert after expert to call for a smaller number of world class units, where medical expertise can be based, leading to better health outcomes. Stormont MLAs will not act because they do not want to be seen to be closing hospitals. This leads to vast inefficiency, which impacts on other budgets including education.

In schooling, the situation is arguably worse. We have a famously divided system which some want to maintain under a guise of shared education. Meanwhile, small Irish language schools are opened almost at a whim.

There need to be honest discussions about education efficiencies, just as in health.