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The comprehensive spending review is a mixed bag for education - ATL
20 October 2010
Commenting on the comprehensive spending review the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) general secretary, Dr Mary Bousted, said:
"Schools and schooling are not divorced from society, so the cuts to public services will hit those who have least and increase the barriers to learning for disadvantaged children. This is no recipe for reducing the attainment gap.
"However, we congratulate the Secretary of State for Education on having successfully fought for investment in education in this tough spending review. It was a real achievement to have the schools budget ring-fenced and gain modest rises in funding for schools.
"This should end some of the wilder redundancy talk our members have been hearing.
"It is good to see that the Liberal Democrats have succeeded in getting the pupil premium agreed and funded. However, while we fully support the pupil premium in principle the devil will be in the detail of how it is allocated.
"We are pleased that Sure Start will continue and that the government is extending funding for pre-school children to free places for disadvantaged two year olds since investment in early years education is the most cost-effective way to help poorer children. But it will be pointless if the nursery and pre-school places are not guaranteed to be good quality play-based provision that meets the needs of these children and staffed by well-qualified adults.
"The cuts in central education services provided by local authorities could be hugely damaging as schools depend on services such as children's mental health and behaviour support to help pupils with special needs. Without these services schools will not be able to raise these pupils' attainment.
"It is deeply regrettable that the government has continued to ignore further education. It is hard to see how FE and sixth form colleges will be able to cope with an increased demand for places without any increase in funding. When the demand for skills is growing the government is risking cutting the life raft for young people who are in desperate need of high quality skills to become employable.
"We regret the cuts in the school building budget. We were not uncritical supporters of building schools for the future as it allowed money which should have been spent on children to go to consultants and be wasted on unnecessarily grandiose schemes. But some schools are frankly dangerous with unsecured asbestos and others are substandard - damp, inaccessible for pupils and staff with disabilities, too noisy, and lacking sufficient classroom space - and they need to be repaired and upgraded."
Notes to editors
The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) is an independent, registered trade union and professional association, representing approximately 160,000 teachers, headteachers, lecturers and support staff in maintained and independent nurseries, schools, sixth form, tertiary and further education colleges in the United Kingdom.
ATL exists to help members, as their careers develop, through first rate research, advice, information and legal advice.
ATL is affiliated to the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE) and Education International (EI). ATL is not affiliated to any political party and seeks to work constructively with all the main political parties.