The building of new classrooms for 35,000 children in the last year has been praised by Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop.

The Scottish Government is committed to move over 100,000 pupils out of substandard classrooms by 2011. New figures show that the 115 school construction projects completed last year accounted for a third of this target.

As well as its commitments in this Parliament, the SNP believes a longer-term framework for schools building and maintenance in Scotland is needed. To this end it has established a group to investigate this proposal, which would be implemented together with COSLA and local authorities.

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"I am delighted that 35,000 more children across Scotland are getting their lessons in modern, state-of-the-art classrooms," Hyslop said.

"We are matching the previous administration's school building programme brick for brick and we have honoured our commitment to continue to improve the school estate. Today's figures clearly show work is continuing apace to improve the school estate.

"Currently there is more than £2 billion of committed investment in Scotland's schools," she added.

Since taking power last year the SNP administration has approved funding for seven "major" local authority projects, with four more currently under consideration. The total value of these projects is around £1 billion.

"In total we expect 250 schools to be built, funded or under construction through various funding mechanisms during the life of this Parliament. On top of this many other schools will benefit from various improvements to fabric and facilities, to provide the state-of-the-art facilities our pupils deserve," Hyslop argued.

The working group's establishment followed the 'Improving the School Estate' report from Audit Scotland last year. All of its recommendations were accepted by both the Scottish Government and COSLA.

(GK/JM)