Major improvements will be made to the school estate in Scotland resulting in 100,000 more pupils being taught in modern school buildings in four years time, Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop has pledged.

Hyslop promised that the number of students being educated in crumbling schools will be cut by over a third in the lifetime of this parliament. Within this time frame the Scottish Government expect that 250 schools will be built, funded or under construction "through various funding mechanisms" she said.

This follows an Audit Scotland report earlier this year which revealed the poor state of much of Scotland's school estate. In 2007 the number of schools in the categories of 'poor' and 'bad' conditions was almost 1,000, affecting around 260,000 pupils.

The Cabinet Secretary also said there will be increased momentum behind improvements following the establishment of a joint Scottish Government/COSLA working group.

The group was set up in the wake of the Audit Scotland report to consider its recommendations including a review of the School Estate Strategy, a financial strategy to achieve the strategy's targets and greater focus on design and environmental sustainability of school buildings. Following discussions within the group a new School Estate Strategy for the longer term is expected to be published by spring 2009.

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Hyslop said: "While the report highlights that progress has been made in improving the school estate, it also brings in to focus that this Government has inherited an estate which is not yet in good enough shape.

"We are committed to lifting 100,000 school pupils, by 2011, out of tired and crumbling school buildings and classrooms and providing them with cutting-edge accommodation and facilities in which to continue their 21st century education."

She added: "There's more than £2bn of committed investment in Scotland's schools at the moment.

"We've honoured our commitment to continue to improve the school estate. This Government has already signed off seven major local authority building projects since May 2007 and another four are in the pipeline - combined these have a capital value of around £1bn, financially supported by decisions of the SNP Government.

"We have also substantially increased the capital resources for authorities. Almost £3bn - an increase of £115m in each of the three years of the spending review period - will be available over three years to secure investment in infrastructure, including schools.

"This is helping many councils to make schools their investment priority, as demonstrated by over £1bn of capital investment committed to school building projects over the next five years highlighted in the Infrastructure Investment Plan. These are only the large scale "over £5m" projects. There's also a great deal of smaller scale work going on to the benefit of many other schools across Scotland."

(GK/JM)