More than 200 Victorian public schools urgently need repair. Check if yours is one of them

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One in five Victorian public schools is in urgent need of repairs or rebuilding due to leaking roofs, cracked walls and other faults so concerning that the Victorian School Building Authority rated them as “poor”.

A snapshot into the state of almost every Victorian public school has revealed schools in all areas of the state were in critical need of upgrades, though almost three out of four of the most desperate were in regional and rural areas.

Official reports compiled by the Victorian School Building Authority (VSBA) show that 199 of the 1062 schools it assessed in the years leading up to 2023 received condition scores below 3.25 out of 5 – the threshold under which schools are considered to be in “poor condition” and project officers are appointed to lead improvements.

The Education Department fought for two years to block the release of the sensitive school condition reports though freedom of information provisions until November, when the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal ordered their release to the state opposition.

Opposition Leader Jess Wilson said efforts to fight the reports’ release followed a “secret” $2.4 billion funding cut to public schools in last year’s state budget.

“With hundreds of schools in poor condition, billions of dollars of funding cuts and a persistent teacher shortage crisis, Labor’s claim Victoria is ‘the education state’ is in tatters,” Wilson said.

Victorian Opposition Leader Jess Wilson has accused the state government of trying to hide the poor condition of hundreds of public schools.

“Instead of spending years fighting the release of this list and avoiding accountability, the Allan Labor government must urgently bring our schools up to scratch so that every student has a safe, modern classroom to learn in.”

The VSBA undertakes a rolling facilities evaluation (RFE) inspection at every Victorian public school at least once every five years, and assigns a condition score of their buildings and grounds to identify urgent issues and prioritise those most in need of funding for improvements.

Reports released by the department reveal that in 2023 there were 21 schools in such bad condition that they received scores below three, including 16 in regional Victoria.

Of those, the state’s most dilapidated school, Ultima Primary School, has since been closed because it had no enrolments. Brighton Beach Primary School, which was rated as having the state’s second-worst condition, has received more than $1 million in funding through various building grant programs since the report was compiled in 2023.

A Victorian government spokesperson said the state had delivered a record investment in school infrastructure for communities and maintained that Victoria continued to be recognised as “the nation’s education state”.

“Our department and schools work incredibly hard to manage their budgets and maintain schools across Victoria, and these five-yearly rolling facilities scores are only a point-in-time reflection of the status of the school,” the government spokesperson said.

A Department of Education spokesperson said the 2023 snapshot was based on a rolling five-year inspection process, and did not reflect the current condition of many schools.

They said the department’s annual maintenance and compliance budget has grown six-fold in the past decade to more than $600 million for 2026, including more than half provided directly to government schools through Student Resource Package allocations, alongside programs targeted to specific upgrade and maintenance needs.

“Upon receiving their condition scores, the Department of Education works directly with the schools to identify defects, prioritise them and then provide funding, guidance and support to resolve them to ensure that schools remain safe and in good condition,” the department spokesperson said.

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