Heat in classrooms: unions call for work on school buildings

This summer's heat has brought the problem of school buildings back to the fore. Teachers' unions met in Bern to warn about the effects of high temperatures on learning, just as much of the country returns to the classroom.

Unlike Ticino, where the school year starts later, pupils in eleven German-speaking cantons went back on Monday. Lessons resume next week in Vaud, Neuchâtel, Geneva and Jura.

"Our schools are not simply infrastructure. They are genuine teaching tools," explained David Rey, president of the Syndicat des enseignants romands. In his view everything affects learning: air quality, natural light, the acoustics of the rooms. Rey cited studies showing that concentration declines in the heat, and noted that many schools were not designed for increasingly frequent heatwaves.

The national picture is missing

The SER and its German-speaking counterpart LCH criticise the absence of precise nationwide data. Nobody knows, systematically, what temperatures are reached in the country's classrooms during heatwaves.

That is where the unions' demands begin: regular monitoring of temperature and air quality, planting in school playgrounds, and night-time cooling of buildings.

Responses so far have been local and improvised. Rey recalled that Geneva temporarily suspended attendance requirements for younger pupils, that several French-speaking cities altered their school calendars, and that schools in Zurich and Lucerne shortened the school day.

The organisations set out four priorities: a coordinated assessment of school buildings, the integration of teaching and climate requirements into architectural projects, the involvement of staff and pupils in planning spaces, and more green areas to make schools more resistant to heat.

"Preparing the future of the school means preparing the future of the buildings," Rey summed up. The unions now intend to open a fundamental discussion with municipal and cantonal authorities.

The issue also concerns Ticino, where lessons resume at the end of August and where temperatures have run well above seasonal values for weeks. Decisions about buildings, however, are taken over long timescales and involve investment that falls to municipalities, while the heatwaves return every summer.