Funding crisis is damaging children’s education - warning
CHILDREN’S education is being damaged by “chronic underfunding” of schools in Wales and there is not enough cash to meet the needs of new education legislation, headteachers have warned.
The ongoing funding problem, which has largely gone under the radar during the Covid pandemic, is highlighted once again in new findings from a National Association of Head Teachers Cymru survey.
Nearly one in five of 160 school leaders surveyed expect a deficit budget in 2021-22 and 16% said they will have to make cuts to balance their school’s budget this financial year.
A separate report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows per pupil spend in Wales lags behind England and Scotland and is stagnating at the same amount in real terms as a decade ago.
Headteachers say budgets are so low they are now:
cutting staff by not replacing vacancies;
reducing investment in equipment for schools;
delaying repairs or refurbishment to cut maintenance budgets; and,
slashing investment in teacher training.
The NAHT Cymru survey added that school budgets are under further pressure from new Welsh Government initiatives, for which heads say they now need more money.
This includes providing increased support for pupils with Additional Learning Needs (ALN) and providing more support for the mental health of pupils.
The survey of school leaders across Wales found that nine in 10 reported funding for pupils with special educational needs in their school is insufficient and 94% said the ALN funding they receive is insufficient to meet the needs of new ALN legislation.
On top of this, three in four school leaders said they do not have enough capital funding to maintain their buildings.
Nearly eight in 10 school leaders said that the cuts they are being forced to make will have a negative or strongly negative impact on the quality of their school provision.
Asked about losses incurred as a result of the pandemic, school leaders reported average additional costs of £27,857 for enhanced cleaning and safety measures.
They also reported additional supply costs of £6,104 as a direct result of the pandemic and lost income from rental or letting of an average £23,898.
More than half of the school leaders in the survey said the Covid recovery funds received so far aren’t enough to meet the needs of pupils.
Launching the report – A Failure to Invest: The State of Welsh School Funding in 2021 – NAHT Cymru president Kerina Hanson, headteacher at Pennard Primary in Swansea, said: “Funding is crucial to the failure or success of many of the changes in education in Wales.
“However, without adequate funding, there is a risk that education reform will go very wrong.
“Education in Wales continues to suffer from a long-term funding crisis. It is time for education to be priori
tised through proper investment and sustained support to ensure we can adopt and embed a world-leading curriculum.
“We are looking to Welsh Government to support the vision for Wales, to nurture a system in which innovation can thrive, to help schools deliver the support they need for their school communities, to value education as the way forward for Wales.”
The report acknowledges the pledge from the Welsh Government for £50m for school improvements last March, but said it wasn’t enough and called for a review of school funding in Wales.
“A review of education spending in Wales is needed to ensure the money we do have offers the best outcome for learners,” the document warned.
“The money delegated to schools via local government is not ringfenced; it is distributed via multiple funding formulas and through various routes, adding complications to an already inequitable system.
“Simply redistributing existing budgets in different ways will not resolve the crisis.”
NAHT Cymru director Laura Doel said: “Our findings clearly tell us that schools in Wales need an urgent and sustained increase in school funding to ensure that the needs of all pupils are met.
“The new Curriculum for Wales and the Additional Learning Needs reform have highlighted the need for substantially improved investment to support these significant changes in education practice.
“And funds must be distributed in a direct and equitable way, unlike the present bureaucratic formula that we currently have.
“We’re calling for a review of education spending in Wales to ensure the money we do have offers the best outcome for learners, and the review must include looking at the role and value of the middle-tier structure.
“Crucially, schools should not be left to work in isolation. The Welsh Government must fully fund the health, local authority, social care and therapeutic services upon which pupils and schools rely.
“One in every three of our school leaders surveyed are having to buy in support services that aren’t readily available to them from the NHS and care system.”
A report on comparisons of school spending per pupil across the UK from the Institute for Fiscal Studies published last month shows that in 2021-22 core school spending per pupil is expected to be highest in Scotland at more than £7,500, followed by England at £6,700, Wales at £6,600 and Northern Ireland at £6,400.
In the past decade there have been real-terms cuts to per pupil school spend across all four nations.
Between 2009–10 and 2018–19, spending per pupil fell by 8% in real terms in England and by 5% in real terms in Wales.
Both nations have since seen an increase of 8% up to 2021–22. The net result is that spending per pupil is now slightly above 2009–10 levels in Wales, but still slightly below in England, the report found.
Luke Siberta, IFS research fellow and report author, said: “Over the past decade, there were cuts to school spending per pupil right across the UK.
“In Scotland, large recent increases mean that spending has more than recovered and core spending per pupil is now likely to be more than £800 higher than in the rest of the UK.
“Despite recent increases, spending per pupil in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is still close to or just below levels seen a decade earlier.”
Josh Hillman, director of Education at the Nuffield Foundation, is concerned about funding for Covid catch-up.
He warned: “A major cause for concern is that funding for education recovery programmes in response to the pandemic is much lower across all four nations than those being implemented in comparable countries.”
Responding to the findings, Welsh Conservative Shadow Minister for Education Laura Anne Jones MS said: “This is a damning report and there is no excuse for the consistent underfunding of education in Wales by Labour ministers.
“For every pound spent on schools in England, the Labour government in Cardiff Bay receives £1.20 to spend here – yet in spite of this, each pupil in Wales receives around £1,000 less than they should.
“It’s a national scandal, and Labour must stop using the pandemic as an excuse for letting education slide.
“They have the tools and the funding, and it’s time they used them to deliver a first-class Welsh education system.
“The Labour-led government must reverse its cuts and invest more in our teachers and schools so that the next generation in Wales has the best possible chance to reach their full potential.”
Responding to NAHT Cymru’s report, a Welsh Government spokesman said: “We have prioritised education funding during the pandemic to support learners.
“The extra £179m we have provided to schools this year is recognised as the largest spend per pupil in the UK.
“Following the publication of Review of School Spending in Wales, we are working with our partner organisations to consider the complexities of the school funding system and how this can be made more efficient and transparent.”