The Association of School and College Leaders launched a mass
Twitter campaign last night (Sunday 5 March 2017) to highlight
the price of the education funding crisis.
Schools across the country tweeted thousands of pictures showing
a range of fantastic activities that they provide for their
pupils with the hashtag #whatwouldyoucut. The aim of the campaign
is to show politicians and the public the impossible choices that
schools must make to cut a total of £3 billion from their budgets
by 2020.[1]
The tweets included pictures of science experiments, music and
performing arts events, technology workshops, sports activities,
and school trips.
It comes ahead of the Chancellor’s Budget on Wednesday (8 March)
and the opening of ASCL’s Annual Conference on Friday (10 March),
where we will be unveiling the results of a major survey on the
impact of funding pressures on schools.
The tweets were directed to the Treasury and to local MPs, and
the campaign was supported by the general secretaries of the NAHT
and NUT.
The idea for #whatwouldyoucut came from a group of headteachers
in Cheshire East, which is one of the worst-funded areas in
England for school funding, and which is set to lose out even
more under the government’s proposed new funding
formula.[2]
Over the past week, ASCL has been emailing school leaders to tell
them about the campaign and how to participate. The campaign was
launched between 5pm and 8pm last night and quickly began
trending on Twitter (see Figure 1 below).
It will continue in the run-up to our conference in Birmingham.
The aims of the campaign are to:
- make a positive statement about the great work done by
schools and colleges, and how this is being put in jeopardy by
the funding crisis
- raise public awareness of the funding crisis in education
- focus attention on funding as part of our long-term campaign
for more investment in the education system
Malcolm Trobe, Interim General Secretary of the Association of
School and College Leaders, said: “This campaign shows what is at
stake as a result of the education funding crisis. School leaders
have to reduce their budgets significantly. Smaller budgets mean
fewer staff and this impacts on every area of school activity.
What would you cut? School concerts? Educational trips? GCSE
courses? Mental health support? Sports events?
“Young people need and deserve the rounded education,
opportunities and support that schools provide. School leaders
will do their absolute best to protect this provision but they
face an impossible choice. The life chances of young people are
being put risk.”
Information on school funding
The government has repeatedly stated that school funding is at
record levels. However, this is solely because pupil numbers are
rising.
The level of funding per pupil is frozen and is expected to fall
by 6.5% in real terms between 2015-16 and 2019-20 because of
rising costs. [3]
These costs include increases to employer contributions to
National Insurance and pensions, nationally agreed pay awards,
and the new Apprenticeship Levy which comes into force next month
and which many schools will have to pay.
Sixth forms and colleges are in an even worse situation. They
face the same costs on top of significant funding cuts in the
last parliament – returning real terms spending per student to a
level last seen 30 years ago.[4]
The government is proposing to introduce a new national schools
funding formula (which affects pre-16 school funding, not 16-19
education). This is because the current funding system means that
similar schools in different parts of the country receive
different levels of funding. The new formula is aimed at removing
these historic inequities from the system.
ASCL and many other education organisations have long supported
the principle of a new funding formula to make the system
fairer.
However, the formula proposed by the government allocates basic
per pupil funding levels which are too low for schools to operate
because there is simply not enough money being put into the
system.
The government must invest more in education – and it must do so
now.
To see the campaign tweets search on the campaign hashtag
#whatwouldyoucut.
Notes
