Every Glasgow school classroom to get CO2 monitor

Glasgow council is buying 5,000 monitors at a cost of £797,395 to boost ventilation in schools across the city. The devices would alert teachers if air quality dips so they can open windows or doors.

A council officer told the Glasgow City Council contracts and property committee: “Every single teaching space in every educational establishment in the city will have a bespoke Co2 (carbon dioxide) monitor in it.”

He said there are about 4,600 “teaching spaces” in the city and spare monitors have also been ordered to replace any that get damaged.

The move comes after the UK Government last year made it a requirement for all classrooms to measure and monitor the levels of carbon dioxide in schools according to a council paper.

Letting fresh air into a room is said to help prevent the spread of Covid-19.

Last week councillors sitting on the Contracts and Property Committee approved a deal for Rexel UK Limited to supply the monitors.

The meeting heard it would take six to eight weeks for them to arrive and they would be programmed with default settings – and come ready to install.

The Scottish Government has awarded £750,000 to pay for the equipment while the remaining balance will be met by the council.

The meeting heard there already is a system in place for measuring carbon dioxide levels but the new monitors are designed to be an improvement on the current process.