IT is exactly one year since the roof fell in on hopes that scores of ageing North-East secondary schools would finally be rebuilt for the 21st Century.

Anger and disbelief greeted the announcement that the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme was being dismantled, in the early frenzy of Government spending cuts.

However, amid the gloom was a promise, made by Education Secretary Michael Gove, that crumbling schools would still be rebuilt, as he told MPs: “Capital investment in schools will continue”.

Twelve months on, I would like to tell you Mr Gove has worked hard to make good on that pledge... but, instead, this is a depressing story of dithering and downright deceit.

As a result, the future is one of “patch and mend”, an echo of the leaking roofs and temporary classrooms that I remember from my own schooldays, back in the Eighties.

The truth is that, since axing BSF, Mr Gove has agreed a staggering 60 per cent cut in his budget for school buildings, a reduction that will not be reversed before 2015.

In Darlington, capital funding plunged by an astonishing 65.4 per cent this year – from £11.17m to £3.87m – a sum that is barely enough to repair existing schools, let alone build new ones.

The joke is that the Treasury heard Mr Gove’s talk of opening ‘free schools’ in disused offices and community halls, slashed his budget and said: “Here you are Michael, open all the schools you like!” Well, I think it’s a joke.

For a time, it appeared that Mr Gove’s plans for cheaper, “flatpack” schools – mass-produced designs, built off-site – offered some hope. Some councils quickly put in a bid to be a trial area.

But little has been heard of the idea recently.

It now seems that a looming announcement on schools’ cash for next year will simply dole out similar pitiful sums to this.

A report urged Mr Gove to direct cash to schools in the worst condition, but, as more become academies – severing links with local councils – there is nobody to keep those lists, other than the Education Secretary himself.

Unbelievable.

Asked to visit Darlington – to see for himself why the rebuilding plans at Longfield, Branksome and Hurworth secondaries were so vital – Mr Gove replied that he was too busy.

However, don’t be fooled into thinking there is simply no money.

Oh no, there is plenty for those privatelysponsored ‘free schools’... it’s just that a secrecy order has been slapped on how much they are getting.

We know one school is getting £15m. If the target of opening 100 by next year is hit, the bill could top £1bn – but this is another huge transfer of resources from the North to Tory areas of the South.

Just one ‘free school’ is earmarked for this region – in Ingleby Barwick, near Stockton –- with just nine of 600-odd applications from the North-East.

Depressingly, these schools are now being urged to poach pupils from neighbouring state schools, starving them of the brightest youngsters and of money.

This is right-wing political dogma gone mad.

Would this dismal record earn Mr Gove detention – or merely a dunce’s hat – at one of the schools he has left to crumble?

I will let you decide.