Glasgow’s school building programme has been a catalogue of disasters, judging by newspaper reports this term. A classroom ceiling fell on pupils at Shawlands Academy and four children were taken to hospital for medical checks. The school’s classrooms were like a building site at the beginning of term and teachers were unable to prepare their lessons. At Holyrood Secondary, electrical bulbs exploded, computers billowed out smoke and, when curtains in the art room caught fire, the alarm failed to work properly. In each instance, children had to be sent home and the schools closed.

However, Glasgow’s depute director of education, Ian McDonald, believes Project 2002 is “a vision uniquely and quickly translated into action”. It will see 28 of the city’s 29 secondary schools substantially upgraded - some even rebuilt - by August and the final one by the following year. As part of a pound;1.2 billion city schools project funded under the Government’s public-private partnership scheme, it is by far the biggest schools project of its kind anywhere in the UK, he says.

Recent press reports have tended to highlight the negative, he believes. “Unfair attention has been placed on difficulties that happen in any building project,” he says. “The problems have been exaggerated and portrayed as the norm by the press rather than as the regrettable exceptions that they are.”

The collapse of the plaster ceiling at Shawlands was caused by a leaking tap and was in a part of the building not being refurbished, says headteacher Ken Goodwin. It happened on a Friday and was repaired by the following Monday.

At Holyrood, which is still in the midst of refurbishment, the fire alarm and back-up period bell did fail to go off.

At the newly rebuilt Hillhead High school, the alarm system was repeatedly set off by heat from steaming cloths and an electric light in a cleaner’s cupboard. This has been resolved now.

Problems faced by staff at schools which continue to function while the building work is going on around them, such as Holyrood and Shawlands, include the relocation of classes (sometimes to huts), the loss of teaching materials and resources that are put in temporary storage, noise pollution and all the irritants of a semi-nomadic existence.

“It is very difficult for staff working in the middle of a building site,” says Holyrood headteacher Finbar Moynihan. “The site managers respond well to any problems or complaints but a building site is a building site and conditions can be stressful for staff to work under.”

Shawlands headteacher Ken Goodwin says with a wry smile: “The building work is an added dimension to our daily activities that we are looking forward to doing without.”

But Mr Moynihan and Mr Goodwin - and seemingly most of the staff at their schools and others affected by Project 2002 - agree that these problems are temporary evils and do not affect the health and safety of pupils. Nor do they significantly disrupt the pupils’ education.

Weekly meetings with site managers ensure building and refurbishment work is done in discreet phases and working areas are fenced off. The arrival and departure of heavy machinery, cranes and lorries is outside school hours.

In the dust and disruption of construction work it can be easy to lose sight of what Glasgow’s 30,000 secondary pupils - and staff - will actually gain. All the schools are receiving new classroom furniture. All classrooms will be wired up to information and communications technology. Pupils will have their own e-mail addresses and access to a computer and a bank of computerised learning programs. The ICT service will be fully managed by professionals. All the schools will have a fully networked library and, according to Glasgow, substantially improved indoor and outdoor sports facilities.

“In one year’s time,” says Mr Moynihan, “the conditions for staff and pupils will be immeasurably better.”

At Shawlands, which was in considerable need of repair, the building will not only be weatherproof for the first time in years but, says Mr Goodwin, “conditions will be far superior”.

Eleven secondary schools are being rebuilt and 18 are being refurbished, several with major extensions, such as the state-of-the-art conversion of a Victorian terrace at Hillhead.

Two features which the new schools boast are faculty bases and social spaces fondly known as “streets”, which were pioneered in the designs of Leith Academy, Edinburgh, and St Margaret’s Academy in Livingston. These enclosed multi-purpose spaces are for pupils to hang out in, study or do group work.

In completed schools such as Cleveden Secondary and Hillhead, impressive faculty bases, complete with computers and kitchen areas, replace the traditional staffroom, which some teachers regret though they offer quiet space for preparation and marking.

The generic design of all the schools also provides telephones and computers for teachers in each classroom as well as new resource bases for learning support and classroom assistants.

At Cleveden, the new music rooms for individual instructors are among the impressive facilities which the public-private partnership is providing, though their soundproofing quality does not seem to extend to bagpipes.

Cleveden has also opted for an air-conditioned fitness suite which would be the envy of many exclusive sportsleisure clubs.

At Hillhead there are a few complaints about the rebuilding and refurbishment. The English department still does not have enough storage space and the impressive new canteen cannot quite double as a theatre space or assembly hall as intended: it has no blackout facilities and it still serves as a thoroughfare leading to the main stairs. Nevertheless, compensations include larger classrooms, a new drama studio, a new games hall and a new library.

“It’s like night and day,” says school librarian Calum Smith. “The library is over twice the size it was. We have 20 new computers, room for a lot more stock, a proper reception desk and a librarian’s office.”

Controversy over the nature of public-private partnership funding seems to have died down. Larry Flannagan, Hillhead’s representative for the Educational Institute of Scotland, says: “The majority of staff don’t care who funded it as long as it works.”

Cleveden’s headteacher, Ian Valentine, says: “My view was that Glasgow pupils deserved better than what they were getting and I think we can afford to be pragmatic with regard to PPP now we see the results. This outshines anything we had before.

“Whatever anyone’s misgivings were, now in terms of facilities and accommodation, school furniture, ICT, the lot, things are - and I use the word deliberately - incomparably better.”

His principal teacher of maths, Wendy O’Donnell, is more direct. “These are the best teaching facilities not only in any school I’ve taught in, but in any school I’ve ever been in,” she says.

Mr McDonald argues that PPP was “the only game in town”, which would allow a project of such magnitude and complexity to be completed in such a short time.

Contrasting new with old as you walk around Holyrood and Shawlands or go from Hillhead to nearby Hyndland Secondary, which was emptied of its pupils this summer, you realise the cramped and delapidated state of Glasgow’s old school buildings and the necessity of Project 2002.

“This was some kind of teacher’s base or resource room,” says building manager Stewart Mitchell, standing in a damp smelling, claustrophobic boxroom at Hyndland.

“We’ve discovered asbestos. Eight weeks should remove it.”

As well as a complete refurbishment, Hyndland’s large courtyard is being covered over to create a new social space and a glass corridor will be constructed to connect the two buildings.

“We’ll have it in walk-in condition before next August,” Mr Mitchell says.

The staff and pupils of Hyndland have been decanted for a year to the old Woodside Secondary building in Berkeley Street, to which Hillhead also moved while its premises were being remodelled. And when Hyndland returns home, Berkeley Street will open its gates to welcome St Thomas Aquinas Secondary, the 29th and final secondary school in Glasgow to be upgraded. Its premises are being entirely rebuilt.

Project 2002 is now two-thirds completed. Fourteen schools will have been finished by Christmas, the others by the summer except St Thomas Aquinas, which will be decanted and rebuilt over the following year.

There is no hard evidence, Mr McDonald says, that any pupils have been disadvantaged by the building work. Holyrood recorded its best ever Higher results last session. At St Rochs Secondary, where construction work is underway, attendance has risen by 4 per cent. Springburn Academy has increased its school roll by 100 pupils.

“School rolls were up in Glasgow this August despite falling demographics. Parents are opting out to neighbouring local authorities less and less. I don’t think that is unconnected to the huge improvements which Project 2002 is beginning to deliver,” he says.

Staff at the secondary schools say pupils are impressed, sometimes astonished, by the new facilities being provided, especially the improved social environments, games halls and swimming pools, changing rooms, classroom furniture, computers, carpets and glitzy food stations.

School ethos is also being affected positively. At the newly built Knightswood Primary school, the only primary in Project 2002, the P7 pupils chorus that their new school is “a billion times better” than the old one. One teacher, who has moved from another city primary, says it is nice to be in a classroom where you don’t trip over buckets set out to catch drips from the ceiling and all the staff mention how light and airy it is: some of their old classrooms did not have external windows.

“PPP has been to our benefit,” says headteacher Janet Hutchison. “Without it, I would never, ever have envisaged the situation we are in now with the accommodation we have and the ability to expand our play area.

“Our ethos has improved significantly. Our positive behaviour policy is much easier to pursue.”

Mr McDonald is proud of Glasgow’s achievement. Not only is the “bundle project” model, whereby many schools are being tackled together rather than singly, being promoted by the Scottish Executive for other local authorities to copy, but Project 2002 is also receiving international attention.

“We’ve had visits from Germany, the USA, South Africa, Holland, Finland, England, Northern Ireland and different Canadian provinces and Australian states as well as from other Scottish local authorities.

“This shows that the problems Glasgow faces are ones faced by many. But it’s obviously also an indicator of our success with Project 2002.”