23 November 2017
Many schools across the country are struggling financially as they combat real term cuts and rising costs, but it is common knowledge that there is only so much money available. Recent Budgets have tended to follow the ‘rob Peter to pay Paul’ approach as the Government has juggled its finances, and as a result anyone involved in the education sector would have tuned in to yesterday’s Budget more in hope than anticipation.
So what was announced? Mr Hammond reiterated the commitment to T-levels, the new technical qualifications which the Government announced in March which they hope will simplify the process of vocational training and enable more students to study subjects like hair and beauty or construction. As implementation gets under way the government will invest up to £20 million to help teachers prepare for this change.
In total an additional sum of £406 million has been promised for maths and technical education to help students develop the skills they need to succeed in the current economy, including:
- more children will be given the opportunity to be taught using world-leading techniques through a £27 million investment to expand the successful Teaching for Mastery maths programme into a further 3,000 schools;
- schools and colleges who support their students to study maths will be supported by additional funding at the rate of £600 for every extra pupil who decides to take Maths or Further Maths A levels or Core Maths. Initially £80 million will be available, with no cap on numbers;
- top mathematical talent will be nurtured, and the Chancellor committed to open maths schools across the country. £18 million will be available to fund an annual £350,000 for every maths school under the specialist maths school model, which includes outreach work; and
- innovative approaches will be tested to improve GCSE Maths resit outcomes by launching a £8.5 million pilot, alongside £40 million to establish Further Education Centres of Excellence across the country to train maths teachers and spread best practice.
Computer science receives a boost with the Budget set to ensure every secondary school has a fully qualified computer science GCSE teacher, by committing £84 million to upskill 8,000 computer science teachers by the end of this Parliament. The government will also work with industry to set up a new National Centre for Computing to produce training material and support schools.
The apprenticeship levy has proved to be an additional cost for many schools since April 2018, and the Government has promised to work with employers on how the apprenticeship levy can be spent so that the levy works effectively and all employers, including schools, get something in return for their levy payments.
The government will invest £42 million to pilot a Teacher Development Premium. This will test the impact of a £1,000 budget for high-quality professional development for teachers working in areas that have ‘fallen behind’. This will support the government’s ambition to address regional productivity disparities through reducing the regional skills gap.
So, in conclusion, the Government appears to have found additional money from somewhere to boost the education sector. However I suspect that schools throughout the country would prefer to find out exactly where they stand with the National Funding Formula so that they have some certainty over the income they will receive over the next few years.
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