Students have been banned from playing on a dusty oval at Footscray Primary School because it is riddled with asbestos.

The Education Department fenced off the site earlier this week, declaring that it was unsafe.

School council president Mark Hollis said an external audit ordered by the Education Department revealed that 140 out of 170 pieces of cement sheeting found at the school tested positive to asbestos.

A large number of these pieces of cement sheeting were found on the oval, which is built above demolished houses.

"The ground is contaminated and needs to be fixed," he said.

"We have been raising money for it to be fixed with cake stalls and art shows."

It is understood that asbestos has been discovered on the oval on four occasions in the past 18 months.

Mr Hollis said a consultant working for the department visited the oval earlier this week and said its degraded surface created a safety issue.

Parents have been calling for the education department to urgently fix the oval, which they say is degraded and unsafe.

Rebecca Boyce, whose daughter Lulu is in grade 1 at the school, said the situation had been exacerbated by dry conditions and wind, which had blown away the oval's topsoil, revealing rubble and infrastructure left over from old houses.

"There's asbestos, glass and broken ceramic pieces," she said. "The school seems to be battling this on their own."

Western Metropolitan Greens MP Colleen Hartland said the school had been battling the issue since 2011.

"Asbestos and children don't mix. Fixing this has to be a priority and it has to be quick."

She said the oval was one of the school's few green play spaces.

Last month, a father discovered his child playing with pieces of asbestos at Kerrimuir Primary School in Box Hill North. Contractors removed the asbestos later that month.

An education department spokeswoman said it was waiting on a report from an occupational health and safety consultant who had inspected the oval before making an assessment on what to do next.

"The department has been working closely with the school to monitor and manage some asbestos fragments, which have been found on the school grounds," she said.

She added that an expert hygienist had been engaged to undertake extended monitoring of the school's grounds.

"The hygienist has provided both clearance certificates and air quality monitoring reports indicating no fibres detected during this extended monitoring period," she said.

The Andrews government has set itself an ambitious task, promising to eradicate asbestos from every Victorian state school by 2020.

The May state budget included $42 million for Labor's $100 million asbestos-removal plan, and $35 million for 120 new portable classrooms. But the Opposition says removing the asbestos could cost up to $800 million and has questioned the feasibility of Labor's election promise.

A statewide asbestos audit will be completed by June 2016.

The education department and Footscray Primary School have been contacted for comment.