New Zealand Ministry of Education has announced that two consortia have been shortlisted for a package of four new school projects will be developed using a public private partnership (PPP).

The four schools to be built are Aranui Community School and Rolleston Secondary School in greater Christchurch, Wakatipu High School in Queenstown, and a new school in Auckland to be announced. Three of the schools will open in January 2017 and one in January 2018. All four schools are to be built using a public private partnership procurement model.

The shortlisted consortia are the following:

• Investec - sponsored by Investec, construction by Naylor Love Construction, Opus Architecture as the lead designer, and facilities management provided by Spotless Facilities.
• Future Schools - sponsored by Morrisons, construction by Hawkins Group, ASC Architects as the lead designer, and facilities management provided by Programmed Facility Management.

The project will be developed on a design, build, financing, and maintenance (DBFM) basis for a period of 25 years from the opening of the final school. The project cost is estimated at NZ$200 million (US$170 million).

Kim Shannon, head of the Education Infrastructure Service for the Ministry of Education, stated:

Based on national and international experience and lessons learnt from the Ministry's first PPP at Hobsonville Point primary and secondary schools, we expect the second partnership has an estimated cost savings of between 2% to 8% over the 25 year period.

The government has scheduled the selection of the successful bidder for late 2014. After negotiations are completed with the winning consortium, a contract will be signed and construction can commence in early 2015.

The green light from Cabinet for this project follows the Ministry of Education's first PPP contract signed in April 2012 with Learning Infrastructure Partners for the development, financing, construction and maintenance of Hobsonville Point primary and secondary schools.