Commenting on today’s Budget announcements, Malcolm Trobe,
Interim General Secretary of the Association of School and
College Leaders, said:
“Today’s Budget announcements fail to address the
fact that schools and colleges are severely underfunded and are
having to make significant cuts to their annual running costs.
This means a reduced curriculum, less student support and larger
class sizes.
Free schools
There is a need for more school places because of a rising
pupil population. The government’s policy is that the only
schools which can be built are free schools. What is vitally
important then is that these new free schools are built in the
areas of greatest demographic need. This has not always been the
case in the past. We do not believe that it is a good use of
public money to build schools where they are not needed. It also
creates surplus places and this can damage existing schools in
the area that the free school is located. The government must
take a strategic approach to the provision of school places to
ensure that supply matches need.
Increased selection
The government has indicated that it intends to publish a
White Paper within the next few weeks setting out its plans to
increase the number of selective schools in England. There is no
evidence that increasing the number of selective schools will
improve social mobility and we are concerned that it will have
the reverse effect. A far more effective means of improving
social mobility would be to address the funding crisis which is
affecting all schools, as this would have the greatest benefit
for all young people.
Technical education
We fully support the planned investment in technical
education and proposals to increase its provision for 16-19 year
olds, but the government also needs to ensure that overall
funding levels are sufficient in both pre-16 and post-16
education. These proposals do nothing for those students studying
A levels, as funding for them will have fallen by over 13% over
the course of the 10 years up to 2020. Currently, schools and
colleges are having to reduce the number of GCSE, A level and
vocational courses they provide because of funding pressures, and
technical subjects are among those affected. In addition,
technical education is not recognised pre-16 in the English
Baccalaureate subjects which the government wants 90 per cent of
young people to take at GCSE. We are concerned that there is a
lack of joined up thinking from government over technical
education, and that underfunding is leading to a reduced
curriculum in general for young people.”
