UK schools decimated by funding cuts
By
Tom Pearce
15 February 2017
Across the UK, teachers are drawing attention to the impact of the Conservative government’s slashing of funding to schools.
The government had pledged to protect school spending, but this was a façade. Successive UK governments have failed to stop the austerity cuts on schools and the Conservatives’ proposed fairer funding formula is a further attack on the education system. A desperate situation has been created as cash-strapped schools look to face even further cuts from proposed funding reforms.
The National Audit Office (NAO) reports that schools faced £3 billion in spending cuts and a forecast from the Institute for Fiscal Studies said this equated to an 8 percent real-term cut to funding. This means that schools face the worst reduction in funding since the mid-1990s.
The situation is so dire that MPs recently debated the schools funding crisis. At the Education Select Committee on January 31, Minister of State for Schools Nick Gibb admitted that 5,500 schools are on the funding “floor.”
This was in stark contrast to previous comments by the Education Secretary Justine Greening who claimed that “schools were already receiving record levels of funding. We recognise that schools are facing cost pressures, which is why we will continue to provide advice and support to help them use their funding in cost-effective ways, including improving the way they buy goods and services, so they get the best possible value for their pupils.”
Greening’s response covers up the truth that schools will be forced to find detrimental ways to cope with the coming cuts on spending. Pressures of funding are compromising the education of every child, with schools being treated as businesses. The most…