In Campania, eight out of ten buildings still do not have a static test certificate (86%), even more serious is the certificate of habitability (94,4%), the situation is better for fire prevention (52,4%). School buildings located in seismic zone 1 are 5,3%, of which only 12,5% are designed or adapted to the technical regulations for anti-seismic construction, those in seismic zone 2 are 94,7% with only 0,4% designed or adapted to the regulations.
On the extraordinary maintenance front, 5% of the buildings have been worked on in the last 57,5 years, however, it has not been possible to satisfy all the needs since 84,7% require urgent interventions. The future does not yet live in the schools of Campania: also this year the data of Ecosistema Scuola, the Legambiente survey on the quality of school buildings and services, now in its XNUMXst edition, show us emergencies to be addressed, inequalities to be filled and sustainable innovation to be made a system.
Conducted on the data provided by the provincial capitals, four provincial capitals in Campania participated in the survey: Avellino, Benevento, Caserta and Naples. The data provide a snapshot of the state of health of 301 school buildings, attended by over 66 thousand students, which seeks to highlight the commitment of the administrations to make them safer and more sustainable and to guarantee services to support families.
The data contained in this edition are related to 2020, therefore to a situation in the country characterized by the start of the pandemic. Administrations and schools - comments Legambiente - found themselves unprepared and those chronic problems such as the lack of spaces, classrooms and adequate public and school transport services to ensure physical distancing emerged with greater force.
To address this emergency, for the start of the 2020-2021 school year, the Government has allocated 30 million euros, divided among all the Provinces and Metropolitan Cities as well as among the Municipalities with a school population equal to or greater than 10.000 students, in order to support local authorities in urgent school building interventions and for the adaptation of environments and classrooms to contain the contagion related to Covid-19. Through these funds, in the four capital Municipalities that were the object of our investigation, they carried out work in 227 school buildings, creating 112 new classrooms and recovering another 41 from unused spaces.
"The awareness of the importance of investing in young people, education and training is now shared by everyone; resources are arriving, but first of all we need a new governance plan to overcome emergencies and gaps - says Francesca Ferro, regional director of Legambiente - Here the bar of the challenge becomes higher at a time when huge resources arrive through the PNRR which, as announced by Minister Bianchi last October 7, amount to more than 17 billion which will also fall on construction and school services.
A unique opportunity for a new dimension of environmental and social sustainability of the school ecosystem: these are the legs on which the possibility of success and effectiveness of the ecological transition will rest, which has among its main objectives the overcoming of educational poverty. To guarantee a virtuous management of funds for a better quality of school buildings, it is necessary - concludes Francesca Ferro - first of all to map the needs through the instrument of the school building registry, to plan the interventions according to a scale of priorities starting from energy efficiency and safety.
For this reason, we believe that the PNRR resources, if we want them to have a significant and non-dispersive impact on a widespread emergency such as school buildings, must be used as a priority where they are most needed due to structural fragility, such as the internal areas most subject to earthquakes and landslides, and due to social fragility linked to educational and material poverty, such as urban suburbs.”
Going into the details of Legambiente's investigation we see that the school buildings located in seismic zone 1 are 5,3%, of which only 12,5% are designed or adapted to the technical regulations for anti-seismic construction, those in seismic zone 2 are 94,7% with only 0,4% designed or adapted to the regulations. The Municipalities that have carried out the seismic vulnerability check in all school buildings are 50%.
The buildings in which it has not yet been carried out are 80,7%. The buildings in which diagnostic investigations of the floors have been carried out are increasing (15,1%) but still too insufficient, an intervention of fundamental importance to prevent collapse phenomena, the main cause of accidents and danger to the lives of students, teachers and school staff.
The investigations were followed by interventions to secure the attics in 6,7% of schools. On the extraordinary maintenance front, 5% of buildings have been intervened on in the last 57,5 years, however it has not been possible to satisfy all needs since 84,7% require urgent interventions. In recent years, various funds have been allocated for the energy efficiency of school buildings, in order to make schools less energy-intensive and implement energy production from renewable sources, however the interventions carried out are still too few and insufficient to be able to speak of truly sustainable schools. Buildings with energy certification are only 34,6%.
Of these, only 11,5% are in energy class A, while overall 88,5% are in the last three energy classes (E, F, G). And the results are critical given that only 6,6% of the schools surveyed use renewable energy systems. Consumption coverage from renewable sources is 15%. In this period characterized by the pandemic, physical activities have been the most penalized due to the lack of indoor spaces suitable for ensuring distancing, the lack of outdoor systems, as well as the choice of many schools to allocate these spaces to classrooms.
Although all schools should have gyms and basic sports facilities, in addition to the full use of the facilities by the community, the data collected give us a different picture. Buildings with sports facilities (gyms, outdoor fields, etc.) are 66,4%. Among school buildings with sports facilities, 82% have only indoor facilities, 9% only outdoor and 9% both. Schools with facilities open outside of school hours are only 26%. In Campania, buildings with a canteen are 59,5%. Where present, the school canteen service shows excellent situations.
100% of the Municipalities include in the tender notices the seasonality of food and the inclusion of alternative menus for religious and cultural reasons, and the provision of organic meals, ecological criteria in the purchasing procedures (GPP); 50% include the recovery of unserved food in favor of non-profit organizations. Compared to the meals served, the average of organic in meals is 77%; all the canteens favor Km0 products, 65,2% of them serve meals with PGI, PDO products
The data on the separate collection of different materials in schools have remained constant for some years. Organic waste is the material correctly disposed of in the appropriate containers in the majority of schools (81,4%), followed by glass (78,1%), plastic (77,1%), followed by paper (74,8%), batteries (63,1%), aluminum (53,2%), toner (46,8%), and WEEE (19,3%). Schools with wi-fi networks are 31,6% while those with a completely wired network, adopting the precautionary principle, are 59,9% of school buildings.
Data for the capital cities. In the capital city of Naples, the survey involved 219 school buildings for a population of over 50 thousand students. Only 10 buildings have a certificate of habitability, 13 have a static test certificate. Diagnostic investigations on the floors have been carried out on 24 buildings in the last five years, while the floors have been made safe in 10 buildings.
There are 143 school buildings that have benefited from extraordinary maintenance interventions in the last five years while 197 buildings require urgent extraordinary maintenance interventions to comply with regulations and eliminate risks, mainly for systems and fire prevention. In 168 schools, separate waste collection is practiced.
There are 9 buildings that use renewable energy sources (this concerns solar/photovoltaic systems in their entirety). There are 95 school buildings with usable green areas while there are 144 sports facilities in school buildings, 131 of which are usable. There are 46 school buildings that have facilities open to the public outside of school hours, while only 33 buildings have a wifi network while 144 have a wired network.
The survey for Avellino involved 27 school buildings for a population of approximately 5250 children. All the buildings have a static test certificate but only 7 buildings have a certificate of habitability. There are 14 buildings that have benefited from urgent extraordinary maintenance interventions in the last five years.
There are six school buildings that use renewable sources, while in the last five years diagnostic investigations of the attics have been carried out on 14 buildings and 9 have been made safe. In all 27 schools, separate waste collection is practiced and they are equipped with a wi-fi network. There are 16 usable sports facilities present in the school buildings. Four buildings use a municipal school bus.
For Caserta, the survey involved 39 school buildings for a population of approximately 6200 children. No building has a static testing certificate. There are 10 buildings that have benefited, in the last five years, from extraordinary maintenance interventions. Among the administrations located in seismic zones 1 and 2, Caserta declares that it has carried out seismic vulnerability verification in all buildings.
There are six school buildings that use renewable sources while in the last five years diagnostic investigations of the attics have been carried out on 5 buildings while in no building have they been made safe. There is a pedibus service with safe school/home routes that involves three schools and over 500 children. In 20 buildings, separate waste collection is practiced while 25 institutes are equipped with a wi-fi network. There are 7 sports facilities present in the school buildings, only 3 of which are usable.
For Benevento the survey involved 16 school buildings for a population of approximately 4600 children. Only two schools have a static test certificate and none have a certificate of usability. There are 12 buildings that have benefited, in the last five years, from extraordinary maintenance interventions.
Among the administrations located in seismic zone 1 and 2, Benevento declares that it has carried out seismic vulnerability assessments in all buildings. Separate waste collection is practiced in all buildings, while 10 institutes have a wi-fi network. There are 8 sports facilities in school buildings, only 3 of which are accessible. 100% organic meals are served in school cafeterias.
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