NEARLY three-quarters of Ballarat and district state school principals want a major upgrade to their schools facilities, an Australian Education Union survey has found.
The annual State of Our Schools survey posed questions to 57 Central Highlands Wimmera district state school principals, with 73 per cent saying they needed a major upgrade, with new classrooms and toilet blocks heading the
list of priorities.
The survey also revealed 87.5 per cent of principals felt they need to upgrade the school's equipment.
Australian Education Union Victorian branch president Mary Bluett has used the findings to call on the State Government to adopt a 10-year plan for maintenance of state schools.
Ms Bluett said schools would benefit from knowing if and when they would get funding for building and equipment upgrades.
"They are not calling for whiz-bang new arts centres," she said.
"This snapshot clearly has given us areas to lobby hard in the State Budget."
Ballarat East MLA Geoff Howard said the government had spent $5.23 billion on schools and was committed to improving education in the future.
A former teacher, Mr Howard said he could sympathise with teachers' concerns.
"When you look at our record then we have done an outstanding job in supporting education," he said.
AEU Principal Class Association convenor Paul Rose said the government had spent a large amount of money on education since coming into office in 1999.
Mr Rose said a 10-year plan would give people a "light at the end of the tunnel".
"You do need a plan to bring building stocks up to speed," he said.
The survey also showed more than half of the region's schools were using teachers for subjects in which they were not fully qualified, such as mathematics, science and Languages Other Than English.
In a good result, class sizes were down on the previous year, with only two per cent of classes having 30 students or more, and 27.3 per cent of classes having between 26 and 29 students.