The Scottish government plans to fight Covid by cutting the bottom off classroom doors in schools, as a means of improving ventilation.
Education secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said an estimated 2,000 doors classrooms could benefit from being “undercut to increase air flow”.
The proposal is part of a £4.3 million package to make schools safe for Covid-19.
As scientists’ understanding of how Covid transmits has improved policymakers have increasingly focused on improving ventilation in indoor spaces.
Across the UK businesses have been told to conduct ventilation audits to make sure their indoor spaces have adequate airflow – key to reducing transmission.
In a letter to the Scottish Parlament’s education committee, the education secretary said the undercutting measure would cost an estimated £200,000.
The measure is a relatively inexpensive part of the retrofitting programmes, and compare to £1.6 million set to be spent on air filters and £2.4 million for mechanical fans.
“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,” she said.
“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.
“The informal local authority feedback indicated that around 2-4% of spaces have so far fallen into that problematic category, equalling around 2,000 spaces out of 50,000 learning, teaching and play spaces across all local authority school and ELC settings.”
The UK government’s building regulations on ventilation have long stipulated a minimum undercut in new houses in order to “ensure good transfer of air throughout the dwelling”.
But the Scottish Tories seized on the unusual nature of the policy and branded the measure “crackpot”, with Meghan Gallacher, the party’s shadow children’s minister, asking: “Is sawing off the bottom of classroom doors seriously Scottish Government policy to tackle the ventilation problem in classrooms?”
