Newly announced budget cuts have hit Kent schools putting in question the quality of education

An unexpected school budget cut of £155m was announced in a letter sent 10 days before the end of the financial year and affects money councils have already allocated to schools for next term.

The money would have been used to fund pressing needs such as free school meals or extra tuition for children who need help with literacy or numeracy.

In addition a 5% reduction in the standards fund has been confirmed by the Department for Education (DfE). Although this is a small proportion of schools' overall budgets, it is unexpected and will hit schools hard.

Mr H. S. Vafeas, Headteacher of Borden Grammar School, Sittingbourne said:

“We will face real term costs cut of 2-3%. Then on top of that there will be an 80% cut in capital budget, which is about £65,000 at Borden. Altogether the cuts are severe and damaging. The 2-3% on its own would have been manageable but now we just don’t know what to do.”

Another change in the school funding system has been announced recently regarding the Sixth Form funding. At the moment sixth-form colleges get £280 less per pupil than school sixth forms. By cutting additional 18% of this type of funding spread over the next 4 years, the government is planning to reduce school sixth-form funding to the level received by colleges by 2015.

 “Obviously cuts of any kind are never good for anybody and I don’t like how government calls cuts way of saving. They are not saving anything just cutting money available. Especially in education that’s really bad,“ said Liz Jones, mother of three. 


                         Liz Jones shares her opinion on school budget cuts: