A few years ago, on a fine autumnal Saturday morning, I found myself at an Education Board auction, just around the time they were transitioning to become the monolithic Education Authority, or EA.

As a music teacher, I was especially interested in the range of musical instruments on sale, but there was everything from photocopiers and computers to desks and catering equipment there.

I arrived early and having taken apart and reassembled again enough instruments to stock a symphony orchestra, I concluded that most, if not all, of them were very playable, with many just needing either some TLC or simple repairs.

As the auction got under way, it became apparent that one individual seemed to bag everything, so I watched to see exactly what was going on; I wasn’t impressed.

What was happening was that when the first item of each product type was up for auction, the hammer came down in nanoseconds and then the auctioneer would murmur under his breath, “To save time, can we agree the rest of the [say] food mixers are sold to the same buyer at the same price?”

It took a lot of work to circumnavigate the bidding system, but after an exhausting morning’s work, I bagged a rather splendid bassoon for £1.50, and a French horn at £4, and a few other bits and bobs.

I later had my quarry valued by an Ulster Orchestra musician at £850, and the horn at £250, respectively!

For what it’s worth, that other buyer got the remaining 35 bassoons (in similar good condition) for £1.50 each, and had his men stuff them and their other hauls into their vans before anyone changed their minds.

This means that for an outlay of under £100 (including fees), he stood to make a potential profit of £30,000 – and that was just on one product line.

That was several years ago, and I’ve no idea if such an auction process was the norm then, or even still is, but it left a very sour taste in my mouth.

In the school I taught in, we had worked tirelessly to raise money for instruments and equipment, and then to see equipment disposed of like that was the catalyst for many phone calls and emails of complaint, all of which hit a glass ceiling. Sigh.

This brings us to the present day. Currently, in the county, we are seeing a few major house moves afoot, and that’s a lot of equipment lying around waiting for hungry eyes; but is it worth the hassle for them?

Well, in this small county, there’s no shortage of schools moving to new buildings or, in one case, closing down.

In the very recent past, the old award-winning Enniskillen Model PS is now a pile of rubble as staff and students look forward to their first full year in their splendid new school.

St. Mary’s in Brollagh, as reported previously in this newspaper, suffered the indignation of having resources being taken away mid-lessons as the school awaited closure.

South West College is now, as of mid July, an empty shell under lock and key, and awaiting estate agents’ boards – this, despite a million pound media suite being added not that long ago.

Very soon, Devenish College will soon move to the Tempo Road, followed in the next few years by the inevitable demolition of the Cooper Cresent site of ERGS, while Holy Trinity PS will eventually relocate to its long overdue new build.

The sale of schools’s land, especially in the Enniskillen area, will hopefully be transparent and should fill the pockets of the public purse, but what of that which is inside?

The harsh reality is that the bulk of these school property items, if not re-deployed, will be written off.

Despite this, there are a few general principles that apply – the most noteworthy being that “any equipment no longer needed should be disposed of at market value and a case would need to be made were any item/s to be sold off cheaper than this”, as a senior civil servant told me.

Of course, there are other factors to consider, and the disposal of technology is a good place to start as it’s a prime example of the complexities that are involved.

The big issue here is that IT often carries with it specific licences for preinstalled software for use in schools, and additionally, most classroom computers are linked into schools’s intranet C2K network.

Finally, to add a further complication, most schools’s computer provision is undertaken by a body called ‘IT Assist’, and in this case, a re-deployment of any machines in the public sector may be the most appropriate route.

Nevertheless, there are anomalies. Usually, technology and IT are just written off over a given number of years, and that when this has passed, bursars shrug their shoulders, often not knowing what to do.

They can’t turf such old tech out, because there’s an inventory trail, and they also can’t use them, because technical support has stopped due to the tech’s age.

Because of this, many schools have ‘graveyards’ of equipment that is now valueless, but nobody wants to take the responsibility for getting rid of it.

From those I spoke to, there’s a case of “stick everything in the attic and see who comes looking for it” approach.

School furniture is another difficult area to consider. In theory, no principal wants a chewing gum-filled, graffiti-laden desk in their brand-new building, so quite often these desks weave their way to the auction room.

Nevertheless, it’s amazing how much furniture a school goes through, especially as it is often the cheapest and least sturdy brands that are initially purchased.

For Home Economics, Technology, Music, Science and PE equipment; the really good stuff will go to the new site, but things like old electric ovens, 15-year-old Yamaha keyboards, mangled goal posts and the like are the things which, if not redeployed in another school, will end up in the back of a van, and sold off cheaply at an auction.

All-in-all, a lot depends on the type and management structure of a school, who owns the equipment in the first place, as well as the equipment’s age, condition, and its usefulness in a new environment.

Let’s hope the auction room’s methods that I encountered back then was a one-off, and that the rigorous policies about the disposal of publicly-funded equipment are upheld.