{"id":12528,"date":"2017-06-05T14:04:22","date_gmt":"2017-06-05T13:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=12528"},"modified":"2017-06-05T14:04:22","modified_gmt":"2017-06-05T13:04:22","slug":"tories-education-on-a-shoestring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=12528","title":{"rendered":"Tories education on a shoestring"},"content":{"rendered":"
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At St Nicolas\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Church of England school in Taplow \u00e2\u20ac\u201c part of the Prime Minister\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s constituency \u00e2\u20ac\u201c parents are being asked to donate up to \u00c2\u014130 a month to cover a projected \u00c2\u014140,000 shortfall and avoid staff layoffs.<\/p>\n

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It is a scenario being repeated up and down the country<\/a> due to school budgets being decimated. While the Tory\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s have pledged to continue attacking education budgets, Labour has promised to reverse them.<\/p>\n

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Since 2015 the Conservatives have slashed \u00c2\u01412.8bn from primary and secondary education<\/a>, leaving an increasing number of schools struggling to cope and ever more reliant on donations and volunteers.<\/p>\n

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If the Tories regain power, by 2022 they will have cut \u00c2\u01418.9bn more from education budgets and affected 93 per cent of schools. On average every primary school will be \u00c2\u014186,951 worse off, while every secondary school will have lost an average of \u00c2\u0141370,298.<\/p>\n

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The results of reducing children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s education to a shoestring are already painfully evident. Last month Unite, along with other teaching unions, condemned moves by two national academy chains to slash budgets and staffing levels.<\/p>\n

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The\u00c2\u00a0David Ross Education Trust<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0(DRET)\u00c2\u00a0is proposing to cut nearly \u00c2\u01411m in funding from school budgets and up to 40 jobs from across its 32 primary and secondary schools in the East Midlands and Yorkshire & Humberside.<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile the Academies Enterprise Trust<\/a> (AET) plans to cut the number of buildings and estates\u00c2\u00a0staff in its schools by more than 25 per cent, resulting in at least 34 redundancies across 66 academies in London, Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol, Middlesbrough, Barnsley, Gloucester and Milton Keynes.<\/p>\n

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Unite national officer Fiona Farmer said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThese aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the first academy chains to announce damaging cuts and they certainly won’t be the last if the Tories are allowed to continue\u00c2\u00a0slashing education budgets as if\u00c2\u00a0schools are a needless frivolity.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At the Furzedown primary school<\/a> in Wandsworth, London, pupils have been asked to clean classrooms after one of the cleaners left and the school could not afford to replace her. The head teacher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s partner has also been obliged to conduct repairs and maintenance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While the Conservative manifesto promises an extra \u00c2\u01411bn a year for school funding, partly raised by ending free school meals for infants, the Institute for Fiscal Studies<\/a> said that under the proposals budgets will still fall by nearly 3 per cent in real terms by 2021.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s education policy, which includes a more generous sum of \u00c2\u01414.8bn, would be better for Britain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s struggling schools, according to the IFS.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Angela Rayner, Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Shadow Education Secretary, said: \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThere is now no doubt about what Tory plans mean for education – our schools will see their budgets cut. And head teachers have warned us what the consequences will be for parents and pupils: fewer teachers, larger classes, a narrower curriculum, or even a shorter school week.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe IFS analysis is clear: only Labour will give schools the resources they need to deliver a world-class education for the many, not just the few.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s key pledges include reversing the cuts to school budgets with a real terms increase in funding, reduction of class\u00c2\u00a0sizes to under 30 for all five, six and seven-year-olds and free school meals for all primary school children.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The plans will be funded from the \u00c2\u014120bn that will be raised by reversing the Conservative Party\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0cuts to corporation tax.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Farmer said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bUnite welcomes Labour’s plan to\u00c2\u00a0stop cuts to school budgets, reduce class sizes and provide free school meals for all primary school children.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bFor too long education in this country has been undervalued and stripped to the bone by a government whose main priority is to serve the needs of the privileged few.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At St Nicolas\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Church of England school in Taplow \u00e2\u20ac\u201c part of the Prime Minister\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s constituency \u00e2\u20ac\u201c parents are being asked to donate up to \u00c2\u014130 a month to cover a projected \u00c2\u014140,000 shortfall and avoid staff layoffs.   It is a scenario being repeated up and down the country due to school budgets being […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12531,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,17],"tags":[105,733],"wps_subtitle":"Schools struggle to cope under Tory cuts","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12528"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12528"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12530,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12528\/revisions\/12530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}