News Release
Education and Early Childhood
Development
Assessment process for school
infrastructure projects made public
10 December 2019
FREDERICTON (GNB) – In an effort to ensure
transparency, the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development made
public today an analysis tool used to establish the priority ranking for school
infrastructure projects.
“New Brunswick has limited resources and it is
important to have an objective process when it comes to setting priorities and
making decisions,” said Education and Early Childhood Development Minister
Dominic Cardy. “This tool allows the department to respect the role of the
district education councils while providing a provincial perspective to
long-term capital planning.”
The Quadruple Bottom Line Multi-Criteria
analysis process provides an unbiased, data-driven analysis which is used
annually to evaluate major capital school infrastructure projects that have
been requested by the school districts. These projects are over $1 million and
include renovations to existing schools as well as new construction projects.
An overview of the tool is now available online.
The tool was developed in 2014 with the
assistance of school districts and experts at Ernst & Young. It includes 15
indicators divided into four quadrants: economy, environment, social, and cultural.
“Before this tool was introduced, the
department did not have a comprehensive, analytical, evidence-based tool to
support the priority setting process,” said Cardy. “Therefore, it was
susceptible to subjective or partisan considerations.”
Every year, school districts evaluate their
regional needs based on factors such as demographics and age or condition of
existing infrastructure and submit a list of major capital project requests to
the department. The department uses the tool to assess and prioritize all
submissions in order to create a provincial priority list of capital projects
based on a high to low ranking. The evaluation process for all projects is
undertaken by the same team of knowledgeable staff to ensure a consistent
analysis of all projects.
10-12-19