Education spending cuts 'will hit quality'

Funding cuts at schools and colleges would lead to larger classes, fewer resources and less subject choices for older pupils, a union says.

The Association of School and College Leaders said tight budgets meant any savings would impact on standards in education.

The Government has pledged a 0.7 per cent average funding increase for schools in 2011/12 and 2012/13, along with a 0.9 per cent budget rise for teaching people aged between 16 and 19.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

But Schools Secretary Ed Balls, MP for Normanton, has said that efficiencies would have to be found.

This has sparked fears that schools and colleges could have less cash in real terms and the association said any surplus would be difficult to identify.

It questioned its members to ask what impact a hypothetical two per cent budget reduction would have.

Based on the first 200 responses, 63 per cent said they would have to consider increasing class sizes, 47 per cent said they would look at delaying the purchase of IT equipment and a further 47 per cent would investigate cutting the number of subject options for pupils aged between 14 and 19.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"I don't see any efficiencies here," ASCL president John Morgan will say at the union's annual conference today.

"These are cuts to frontline activities that will inevitably have a direct impact on the Secretary of State's own priorities of raising standards and breaking the link between deprivation and low attainment.

"Stopping the endless cycle of new initiatives, and the grand implementation schemes that inevitably go along with them, would go a long way towards preserving frontline services in schools and colleges."

The London conference, which starts today and runs until Sunday, will hear calls for the Government to safeguard education budgets.