The annual repayment costs for schools built through private finance schemes hit £244 million last year, official figures show.
This total, for 2008/09, is up £62 million on the previous year and continues a steady rise in costs over the past decade. Public private partnerships (PPP) and private finance initiatives (PFI) see private funding used to build public projects like schools and hospitals.
Education Secretary Mike Russell said: "The folly of Labour's ideological obsession with PFI has now been laid bare. Instead of paying for schools and nurseries in the normal way, they mortgaged the financial future of Scotland's councils and, as a result, today's pupils are burdened with Labour's PFI poisoned chalice."
