£14M Price of failure at axed school
THAT’S THE COST TO TAXPAYERS OF COLLEGE WHICH WAS SHUT AFTER TWO-AND-A-HALF YEARS
A FAILED school shut by ministers after just two-and-a-half years will have cost taxpayers around £14m, the M.E.N. can reveal.
Greater Manchester University Technical College in Oldham was dramatically axed in February amid shockingly low pupil numbers, rock-bottom exam results and sky-high truancy rates.
Local MP Jim McMahon has been pressing government on the exact cost of the failed experiment, which had aimed to give pupils aged 14 to 19 a vocational secondary education.
Those figures reveal that alongside a £9.3m build cost, the school also received a one-off £1m set-up grant, £3m in pupil funding and £80,000 in top-up ‘pupil premium’ cash for poorer students.
Spending for the period between April and its closure at the end of the summer term has not yet been disclosed, meaning the full cost is likely to reach £14m.
When it opened in 2014, the school – which was backed by the University of Bolton and was outside of council control – was hailed as a ‘fresh approach’ to learning, part of government plans to revolutionise technical education.
But by this year it had just 127 out of a possible 600 pupils on its books.
In its first exam results last summer no pupil achieved a C or above in GCSE English and maths and the average result A-level result was E-. Some 36pc of pupils had been persistently absent over the course of the year.
The Manchester Evening News’ Real Schools Guide ranked it the fifth worst in the country this summer, out of more than 3,000 institutions.
Oldham West and Royton MP Mr McMahon said: “I am sick of Oldham being the test bed for the next big idea, when at the same time the basic educational needs are being cut to the bone. While government handed out around £14m of taxpayer money to this one school, they also slashed £18m from other Oldham schools. This means that £480 per pupil would have been snatched away while teachers are stretched and schools battle to cover the bills.”
Michael Gove – who had enthusiastically promoted UTCs under David Cameron – admitted the overall policy had failed and that other schools viewed them as a dumping-ground for poorly performing pupils.
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We want every child to have access to a good education which is why the Secretary of State announced in July that there will be an additional £1.3 billion for schools and high needs across 2018-19 and 2019-20.
“All brand new schools get financial support when they are in the pipeline to open and in the early years after opening, and all schools receive per pupil funding, such as pupil premium funding.
“The best UTCs provide excellent technical education equipping young people with high-level technical skills to meet the needs of the UK economy. The decision to close the Greater Manchester UTC was not taken lightly.
“We supported the trust over a period of time to explore a range of options to find a viable future for the UTC, but none proved to be feasible solutions.”