It would perhaps be naive to expect detailed plans from political parties during a general election campaign. Manifestos tend to be broad brush strokes which are fleshed out later after the victorious party forms a government.
Even with that in mind, however, the spending plans on education announced by Labour and the Conservatives are not encouraging.
Labour is relying on raising extra revenue from its much-discussed proposal to levy VAT on private schools.
Its manifesto envisages generating £1.5bn through this route with the money allocated to policies such as recruiting 6,500 new teachers, mental health support for every school, and 3,000 new nurseries.
These are laudable initiatives which have great potential to benefit children and families, but they are additional items of expenditure, and this spending commitment does not address the general underfunding of education that is currently causing so many problems.
The plan to tax private schools is also unsurprisingly causing a great deal of concern in the independent sector because of the potential impact on students and staff. Whatever your viewpoint on the rights or wrongs of this policy, it is surely reasonable to expect Labour to carefully consider these implications in the event that it forms the next government.
Meanwhile, the Conservative manifesto makes a commitment to protect day-to-day per-pupil school spending in real terms – that is, annual increases in line with inflation. This is unlikely to be anywhere enough to meet actual costs in budgets that are under enormous financial pressure.
In fact, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed out that falling pupil numbers means it translates into a £3.5bn cut to the total schools budget by 2028, and that this would almost certainly require workforce reductions and/or school closures (Adam et al, 2024).
All of this comes at a time when funding pressures are increasingly worrying and clearly getting worse.
A survey conducted by my trade union – the Association of School and College Leaders – found that nearly three-quarters of headteachers will have to increase class sizes over the next 12 months because of insufficient funding.
In many cases, the impact will also be felt in several other areas such as the curriculum offer, school trips, classroom resources, and pastoral support.
And the condition of school buildings is a major concern too after years of government underinvestment. Nearly 70% of respondents say they have classrooms which require replacement or refurbishment.
Where then is the money going to come from to address these problems?
Certainly not from the existing public spending plans pencilled in for the next Parliament which are extremely tight and would arguably lead to a new age of austerity.
Schools would likely be a “protected” area, but this is not as comforting as it sounds as bitter experience tells us that such calculations still tend to fall short of what schools actually need. Experience also tells us that such “protection” tends not to extend to 16 to 19 education which has seen big cuts since 2010.
A simple and deliverable solution would be to use the “saving” from falling pupil rolls not as a bonus for the Treasury but to reinvest in the education system. This money could, for example, be added to existing funding rates to make schools and colleges more financially sustainable, and to the Pupil Premium to target more support for disadvantaged children.
That is a policy that both Labour and the Conservatives could and should sign up to right now.
However, we are unlikely to get any more detail or funding commitments before the general election on July 4. So, this is now increasingly about what happens after the election when a new government is formed.
What we can do in the education sector is to continue to make a strong, principled, and evidence-based argument for the improved funding that schools and colleges so clearly need and which – we believe – is an argument that will ultimately win the day.
Our view is that this is not only vital to ensure that we are able to give children and young people the best opportunities and life chances we can, but it is also a strategic investment in the economic prosperity of the country.
If the UK is to be globally competitive in the future then it must have a workforce with the skills and knowledge necessary to achieve that objective. Without such investment it is difficult to see how it will be possible to secure the long-term economic growth which has proved such a struggle in recent years.
So, in the run-up to the election, if you have a few spare moments, do take a look at our X feed and repost the campaign messages that we are putting out to raise the profile of education.
Let’s make sure that everyone knows what we all know already – #EducationMatters.
- Pepe Di’Iasio is the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders. Read his previous articles for SecEd via www.sec-ed.co.uk/authors/pepe-di-iasio/
Further information
- Adam et al: Election 2024: The Conservative manifesto: an initial response: Schools and early years, IFS, 2024: https://ifs.org.uk/articles/conservative-manifesto-initial-response