With the start of the new academic year just days away, many schools in England are already reeling from energy price rises of more than 200% – with worse to come – plus the added cost of unfunded pay rises and rising inflation. Without additional funding, school leaders are warning of layoffs, larger class sizes and curriculum cuts, which they say could harm children’s education for years to come. Schools are not covered by the cap on household energy bills. Kenneth Baker, who was education secretary from 1986 to 1989, said schools would go into the red without government intervention. “We’re heading into a really horrible two-year period and it’s going to take remarkable leadership to get us out of this mess,” he said. Justine Greening, who was education secretary under Theresa May, said children and schools were facing a “double whammy in education” after the pandemic. “Education has been severely disrupted by Covid and now school budgets are being decimated by inflation, meaning there is less money to invest in young people’s futures,” said Greening, who founded the Social Mobility Pledge, a program which aims to widen social mobility and opportunities. . “Education must be at the heart of the new government’s upskilling strategy, whoever leads it, so pressures on school budgets cannot be ignored.” There has been criticism of the two Tory leadership candidates, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, who have both spoken out in favor of grammar schools but said less about the issues facing schools now. Lord Baker said: “All attention has been given to the health service. the training service has not really appeared for leadership candidates. They just touched on it. “I think the new education secretary will have to go back and ask for more money, which they probably won’t get, so there will be huge pressure on schools. Some schools are certain to go into the red. It will be a very critical year and will cause huge trouble in the education system. “If they overspend, there will be a big deficit, and how are they ever going to cover that deficit? They can not. They are in a cycle of real economic decline. I think it will be a very difficult time for schools. Teachers will try very hard to maintain as high a standard of education as they can. But I think some [schools] it should go in four days, some may go in three days. “This creates problems for families. What do they do if the parents work? We are headed for a truly horrific two-year period and it will take remarkable leadership to get us out of this mess.” The last time schools tried to save money by shortening the school week was in 2017. Many headteachers have disputed claims such moves are back on the agenda and the government has already stressed it expects schools to remain open, morning and afternoon. five days a week. Robert Halfon, chairman of the Tory education committee, said extra funding for energy bills, or energy caps for schools, would be more than a plaster of paris and instead called on the next government to tackle poverty by introducing a radical program of change that had the scale and vision of Lyndon Johnson’s expansion of US welfare legislation in the 1960s. “Whoever becomes the new government must listen to Mr Johnson, and I don’t mean Boris Johnson, I mean President Lyndon B Johnson. In 1965 he introduced a landmark war on poverty,” Halfon said. “We had great discussions during the leadership contest about the NHS and the economy and the cost of living, yet education seems to have fallen by the wayside. Never [Lyndon] Johnson stepped in, it was the cornerstone of his war on poverty. We need the equivalent here.” A spokesman for the Department for Education said the Government recognized that schools – like the wider economy – were facing increased costs. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. “Cost increases should be seen in the wider context of school funding, with budgets rising by £7 billion by 2024-25, compared to 2021-22, including £4 billion for this financial year alone . This is a 7% increase in cash terms compared to 2021-22 and will help schools deal with wider cost pressures, including energy prices and staff wages,” the spokesman said. Halfon, who supports Sunak, said the additional funding to schools was before the war in Ukraine and its impact on the bills. “Liz Truss talked about increasing spending on defense and health. What about education? It’s the greatest challenge of our time in my view,” Halfon said. Estelle Morris, Labour’s former education secretary, echoed his concerns. “In Birmingham where I chair it [education] collaboration is a huge issue. My frustration is the lack of honesty on the part of the government. When principals say the cost is so huge it’s a problem for them, the only response you get is, ‘We increased the school budget by X,’” he said. “Schools are going to go back and as far as I can hear and see, there is no reasonable discussion. Nothing is going to happen unless we have ministers saying, “I can see this is a problem.” Any money they announced as extra was never related to increased energy costs.” Lady Morris also expressed concern about the state of the school buildings. “We cannot have cold schools. It’s against the law. I remember when I was a teacher, if the temperature dropped and we couldn’t keep the schools warm – if the boiler broke – we had to send the kids home. “We can’t be the kind of nation that claims to be trying to steady the ship after all these kids have suffered from the pandemic, and then say we’re closing schools because we can’t pay the electric or gas bill. We cannot be such a country.” Regarding school opening hours, the DfE spokesman said: “Regular attendance at school is vital to children’s education, development and wellbeing and we expect all schools to be open morning and afternoon, five days a day. week”. Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “We are very concerned that the new term will see schools and colleges in the midst of a full funding crisis and that they will have to make impossible choices about where to cuts. “The problem is that they are facing huge increases in energy bills as well as fees for which there is no additional government funding. The last thing they want to do is cut education provision, but with huge extra costs and not enough money to pay for them, there’s only one way to do it.”
