BETRAYAL OF OUR CHILDREN
» Schools face worst squeeze for 20 years » Teachers to be axed and class sizes to grow » Heating turned off, trips & clubs cancelled
BRUTAL Tory cuts threaten our children with fewer teachers and bigger class sizes, a report warns today.
Funding will plunge 6.5% per pupil by 2020 in the worst cuts for 20 years, says the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies.
One former Cabinet Minister said: “Successive generations are being let down.”
SCHOOLS face the worst funding cuts in 20 years – meaning the threat of more staff losses and bigger class sizes, warns a report.
Children from low-income families will be hardest hit because they are already making worse progress than pupils from higher-income families.
Former Labour Cabinet minister Alan Milburn said: “Successive generations of poor kids are being let down by a school system that is supposed to be there to help them move up and get on.”
Spending per pupil is set to plunge by 6.5% by 2020, says an Institute for Fiscal Studies report. “It’s the first time schools have seen real-terms cuts in spending per pupil since the mid-1990s,” it says.
Lib Dem leader Tim Farron accused Theresa May of “waging a war on young people”. He said: “These cuts could be the death of education as we know it.”
UK primary class sizes are already bigger than those in most developed nations. It was joint fifth with South Korea out of 33 countries in a 2014 study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
So the latest cuts could put Britain at more of a disadvantage as it prepares to compete globally, after leaving the EU.
Education chiefs fear cuts will mean teacher numbers will fall while pupil numbers continue to rise, meaning there are fewer teachers per pupil.
One deputy head who draws up school budgets feared cuts of 6.5% could result in two more children per class. Recent figures show primary classes with an average of 27.1 children, and 20.4 in each secondary class.
But the OECD puts lower state secondary class sizes at 26. The scale of the cuts could mean primary class sizes rise by 2.1 pupils, and add an extra three children to secondary classes.
That would result in an average 29.2 in primary classes – close to a limit of 30. But, as parents in urban areas have found, the national average doesn’t apply in big cities, where classrooms are bursting at the seams.
In UK independent schools, just 15 pupils share typical primary-age classes, said the OECD.
The IFS report is based on the current situation of a Whitehall-predicted £3billion cut by 2020, increasing prices and a rising school population of 467,265 since
It’s the first cuts in spending per pupil since the mid-1990s INSTITUTE FOR FISCAL STUDIES REPORT
2009. But a funding formula change in September could make things worse.
According to figures at the school.cuts.org website, backed by teaching unions, 98% of pupils will be hit by cuts, including an average cut of £405,601 per secondary school and £87,117 per primary. But even if heads and school boards keep pupil-to-teacher
ratios under control, subsidised school trips would face the axe and equipment budgets could be slashed.
Textbooks would not be replaced as quickly and education chiefs may be stuck with outdated computers as spending on new resources is frozen.
Schools are already scrapping music lessons, turning off heating and planning to charge parents for pupil’s sessions with mental health counsellors. Mr Farron added: “Smaller budgets will mean staff redundancies, bigger class sizes and slashing things like the school clothing grants.
Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner said: “The Tories are breaking their promise to protect per-pupil spending, and it will be children all across the country who pay.
“Thousands of young people are being left behind.” A Government Social Mobility Commission’s warning over the lack of progress by pupils from poorer backgrounds describes the situation as “one of the great injustices” of the education system. Since 2012, pupils from low-income families have made less progress year-on-year than classmates from wealthier families, research by LKMco and Education Datalab shows. The gulf is worst for poor white children. Most low-income ethnic minority groups make progress in line with the national average.
Social Mobility Commission chair Mr Milburn said: “The gap between poor pupils and their better-off peers increases during their time in school rather than reducing.”
A Department for Education spokesman said: “The IFS has shown that by 2020 per-pupil spending in schools is set to be at least 70% higher in real terms than it was in 1990.”