School funding was a massive issue in the 2017 election, and some say that it lost the Tories their majority. Not seen much about it on MN recently, so it seems to either have fallen off people’s radar or people have believed the Tories when they say the promised increase in funding will sort everything.
According to the latest analysis by the NEU union “Only 18 out of 533 parliamentary constituencies will not see per-pupil funding drop in real terms in 2020 compared with 2015”
Curiously, 13 out of these 18 lucky constituencies are Conservative areas.
If you don’t trust the union data, the Institute for Fiscal studies says “after inflation is taken into account, schools will only be getting an extra £4.3 billion per year in real terms by 2022-23.”
... while the funding is enough to almost reverse the real-terms cuts in schools budgets since 2009-10, there has still been a 13-year real-terms freeze on schools' budgets, which is “an unprecedented period without growth”.”
In addition, there have been announcements like raising NQT pay to £30k. While I’m sure this will be welcomed, if this increased pay sucks up all the extra funding, then we still won’t have any money for teaching assistants, textbooks and glue sticks. Schools also have to pay more national insurance and pension contributions than 2010, so a return to 2010 levels of funding will automatically mean doing more with less.
www.tes.com/news/4-out-5-constituencies-face-school-funding-cuts
www.tes.com/news/government-funding-vow-13-year-real-terms-freeze
I’d normally post this in Education but AIBU seems to be hosting the Jeremy Corbyn thread and I do really want people to know that the crisis in schools will not be fixed by the Conservatives, no matter what they’re claiming.