Water leaks, faulty lighting and malfunctioning lifts are just a few of the problems plaguing a newly built State school in Mosta, according to staff who say they are at their wit’s end.

“Nothing works. You give a lesson and the lights go out. The lift works then it doesn’t... It’s like working at Fawlty Towers [referring to a British TV comedy about a dysfunctional hotel],” one teacher told The Sunday Times of Malta.

The woman, who teaches 11-year-old boys at Maria Regina College in Zokrija, feels the building is not fit for purpose.

An example of the damage.

Although the school only opened its doors four years ago, several members of staff said the building had been plagued by water damage and a host of other problems for several months.

The staff, who did not wish to be identified, said that classrooms and hallway ceilings leaked so heavily when it rained that certain parts of the building had become “no-go zones”. The water leaks have seen plaster ceilings sag, floor tiles rise, and streams of water run down classroom walls in bad weather.

The Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools, responsible for overseeing the maintenance of State schools, has been called in to carry out an architectural survey of the building’s safety.

A copy of the survey, seen by this newspaper, highlights a number of the teachers’ complaints, including dangerous plaster ceiling structures, which had swelled after being exposed to rain water. These, the inquiry found, should be replaced as they could harm students.

An Education Ministry spokesman yesterday said the plaster ceiling had been replaced, and school maintenance staff were working to address problems with plumbing.

This, however, is not the first inquiry to be conducted on the school and another held last year had called for a roof canopy to be installed to stop the leaks. More than a year later, however, the problems are still present.

The latest inquiry, handed over to the Education Ministry last month, found that rainwater was running all the way through the multi-storey building, making its way as far as the subterranean car park. Once there, the water formed large pools where it often remained until being removed by cleaning staff.

Worse, however, was the damage being done to beams, which, although only installed a few years ago, have already started showing signs of corrosion from water exposure. From the car park, rainwater was seeping into adjacent IT labs, where floor tiles had come loose, the report added.

The survey also highlights inadequacies in the school’s plumbing system. Pipes used to relieve rainwater which gathered on the roof were fitted behind classroom walls which meant leaky pipes could not be fixed without significant structural work to remove parts of the walls.

The school’s water pumps, six heavy duty machines on a number of roofs, also required regular maintenance. Teachers said this was made particularly difficult as two of the school’s blocks had no roof access.

“I’m so fed up with working here. All I’m thinking about is that after summer, winter will be upon us and it will be back to that nightmare again,” one teacher said.