SNP ministers plan to spend £300,000 on chopping off the bottom of classroom doors to improve ventilation and stop the spread of covid.
Education secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville today set out a range of plans to improve air quality in about 2,000 rooms that have been identified as having above average CO2 levels.
This includes £1.6 million on air filters, £2.4 million for mechanical fans and £300,000 for doors to be “undercut to increase air flow”.
Somerville claimed the costs are based on councils’ estimates that between two and and four per cent of rooms have been found to be “problematic spaces” where C02 levels are too high.
In a letter to MSPs on Holyrood’s education committee, Somerville stated: “Based on informal local authority feedback, we expect that relatively only a very small number of learning, teaching or play spaces will have persistently high CO2 levels.
“Scottish Government guidance, based on the current weight of expert advice, is that the primary focus of mitigating activity should be on regular CO2 monitoring and associated remedial actions to improve ventilation (i.e. the introduction of fresh air into spaces).
“Where this cannot be readily achieved, and CO2 readings remain high, air cleaning/filtration devices may exceptionally be used as a temporary mitigation to reduce risks in problematic spaces while more sustainable, ventilation-based solutions are implemented.