The City of Geneva is planning forty two additional classrooms to be made available in stages from the start of the academic year 2022

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The Municipal Council has just approved, by a large majority, a loan totalling 36,250,000 francs intended for the purchase, installation and furnishing of schoolrooms as well as a second loan worth 4,236,000 francs for the transformation of certain areas into extracurricular facilities.

For a number of years, school and extracurricular numbers have been constantly and significantly increasing, resulting in a lack of classrooms and facilities in the City’s schools. The existing infrastructures are insufficient to cope with this increase. The Liotard school expansion and renovation project as well as the construction of the necessary new schools planned by the City in the districts of le Mervelet and la Petite-Boissière do not provide a solution to the current emergency.

An additional 42 classrooms to cope with increasing numbers from 2022

This increase in numbers is the result of the densification of the city (with almost 4,500 housing units built over the past ten years) and the renewal of the population in certain districts with the arrival of new families with young children. At the beginning of the last academic year, for example, school numbers increased from 11,900 to 12,200 while the number of pupils making use of extracurricular facilities rose from 6,450 to 6,850.

In order to address this emergency while continuing to provide quality services, the Department of Planning, Construction and Mobility and the Department of Social Cohesion and Solidarity have joined forces to develop a strategy designed to cover the years from 2022 to 2027, thereby meeting the municipalities’ legal obligations.

Modular and mobile schoolrooms will be implemented in stages from 2022 in the districts of les Eaux-Vives and le Petit-Saconnex and from 2023 in the district of les Franchises, corresponding to a total of 42 additional classrooms. In order to ensure the most efficient allocation of pupils possible and to minimise their movements, discussions must still be held with the Department of Public Education, Training and Youth. Every effort will be made to limit the negative effects of these measures for the families.

Collaboration to provide an effective response to the issues of school planning

To date, the collaboration between the Schools and Child Institutions Service and the Built Heritage Division, combined with the reactivity of the Municipal Council, has given rise to an effective solution making it possible to welcome all pupils from the start of the academic year 2022 onwards. The City has therefore submitted two requests to the municipal council for loans totalling 40,486,000 francs. The first loan is intended for the purchase, installation and furnishing of the schoolrooms, distributed across four primary school sites within the municipality of Geneva. The second loan is earmarked for the transformation of certain areas, in particular former staff apartments, into extracurricular facilities. 

Frédérique Perler and Christina Kitsos, who are responsible for these projects, applaud the work carried out by their services in recent months to overcome the logistical challenge and cope with the increase in numbers in record time. At the same time, the departments concerned have endeavoured to establish a global strategy designed to maintain the provision of high-quality services over time.