In the meantime, they say, improving air quality in schools is achievable, if governments are willing to stump up what is required.

Twenty-six years ago major concerns about outdoor air pollution resulted in the Federal Government mandating national standards for outdoor air quality, yet there remains no government-mandated standards for indoor air quality despite clear links between poor air quality and cognitive impairment and increased likelihood of pathogen transmission.

Air quality chatter peaked during COVID, with analysts regularly discussing air circulation concerns in hotels, hospitals, in places of work, on public transport, in shopping centres and in schools.

While high-filtration air conditioning is now standard in many of these settings, our educational institutions remain seemingly ignored.

Teachers and students spend 90 per cent of their day indoors, yet opening windows remains the only circulation option in most classrooms – which is made all the more problematic, given the vast number of schools are located near busy roads and that having windows open often means staff and students either risk hypothermia or heat exhaustion – take your pick.

Professor Geoff Hanmer says improving air quality in schools nationwide is simply a matter of installing proper heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, which might cost around $2 billion a year over five years – $10 billion in total – but that cost would be more than offset by how much the government and the economy would save.

“We spend about $80 billion a year on K-12 education, so this is not a fantastically unimaginable amount of money. It’s maybe two-and-a-half per cent of the education budget,” he tells EducationHQ.

“I’m not saying it’s not a lot of money, clearly it is, but it’s not an unimaginably large amount of money.”

Hanmer says the figures his team have budgeted so far would result in cost-saving, if the cost of providing additional relief teachers and sick leave for parents is taken into account.

“That is probably the narrowest view of it, because the thing that is most likely to be adventageous long-term is the capacity of students to do a better job of learning,” he says.

Hanmer is an adjunct professor of architecture at the University of Technology Sydney and part of national research group Thrive, which is comprised of experts in aerosol science, engineering, architecture and business who want to improve indoor air quality.

HVAC systems are different from the simple split-system air conditioners that already exist in some schools, in that they provide industry standard levels of fresh air as well as regulating air temperature.

He says the most compelling reason for these to be installed in schools is because quality air helps people learn better.

When you have poor ventilation, people's mental acuity, their cognition, their capacity to learn actually goes down, Hanmer says.

“There’s evidence that it affects students’ behaviours, so kids get ratty, and of course the rattier kids get, the harder they find it to absorb information that’s being presented to them.”

The other thing about ventilation, Hanmer says, is that it will dilute any pathogens in the air.

A well-ventilated room will have relatively few pathogens, he says, simply because the air in the room is being diluted by a supply of fresh air, and the weaker the dilution, the more chance there is of catching something that somebody else is exhaling.

“So we know now that COVID is airborne, flu is airborne, measles are airborne, and most of the pathogens that cause colds and sore throats and so on are airborne, so having poor ventilation means that you’ll stand a high chance of catching one of these diseases,” Hanmer explains.

“We already have people who know how to make air conditioning systems. What we have to do is to show people why that’s important and then make sure that we transition from natural ventilation in high occupancy buildings like schools towards mechanical ventilation.”

A level of1200ppm (parts per million) of CO2 in a room will start to affect people’s cognition, he says, less than 800ppm is acceptable, but 700 ppm is preferable.

A recent study of 60 New South Wales public schools found if windows were shut, classroom carbon dioxide (CO2) levels easily exceeded 2500 parts per million (ppm) – which Hanmer says equals ‘really bad ventilation’.

In an article published on the ABC News website earlier this month, Professor Lydia Morowska said poor air quality was already costing the country billions and the case for change was compelling.

“There was a report published by the CSIRO in 1998 assessing that inadequate indoor air quality costs Australia $12 billion a year,” the physicist and world-renowned expert in air quality from Queensland University of Technology said.

“Now, if we translated this to the current value of the Australian dollar, it would be $24 billion a year – so it’s a huge cost.”

Morowska was the lead author of a paper published earlier this year from a number of scientists around the world that called for mandated indoor air quality standards.

Their blueprint for change recommends monitoring three pollutants, including CO2, particulate matter and carbon monoxide, which are good broad indicators of air quality.

Professor Hanmer says when CO2 levels go above 1200ppm, it starts to impair people's cognition, which is clearly a big problem in classroom environments.

Hanmer says schools, meanwhile, should be lobbying state and federal governments for action, but also looking to implement solutions of their own.

“Obviously the only people with the chequebook to do something about retrofitting schools with HVAC systems is government, but people shouldn’t feel that they can do nothing until that happens,” he says.

“Yes, they can open windows and encourage people to dress appropriately for the temperatures they might encounter. They can use portable air purifiers to filter out both PM2.5s and pathogens.

“Those two things they can certainly do now, but in many schools they face this dilemma – are we going to be comfortable or are we going to have decent ventilation?”

Hanmer says one of the reasons we see air conditioning systems in places like libraries and art galleries is to make sure that we don’t have particulates in the air which would damage the books or the art collection.

“Well, if it’s good enough for books or the art collections, it’s probably more than time we thought about kids and their lives,” he concludes.

Earlier this year, the Australian Academy of Science, Burnet Institute, and CSIRO brought industry leaders from more than 30 organisations together to demonstrate the science underpinning the need to prioritise clean indoor air, with international leaders providing examples of research and advances in other countries, including the adoption of regulations and standards in schools and public spaces.

There does appear to be some hope that governments are listening.

In July, the Victorian Government announced a new research project aimed at protecting citizens from airborne infections, pollution, bushfire smoke and a changing climate.

Minister for Medical Research Ben Carroll announced Burnet Institute will deliver the project.

The two-year Pathway to Clean Indoor Air in Victoria project will engage a multi-disciplinary research consortium to evaluate indoor air quality in community spaces around the state, with a range of practical measures to improve indoor air quality set to be piloted in settings including schools, workplaces and public spaces.

A Federal Department of Health spokesperson told the ABC at the start of this month that the Government is examining work by the National Science and Technology Council and the Australian Centre for Disease Control to develop policies for improving indoor air quality for Australians.

Seems it’ll be a little while before educators and students can collectively breathe a little easier.