BY next year Melksham Oak School will have lost out on over two and a half million pounds of funding.
This is according to figures released by the School Cuts coalition of unions who are campaigning for schools to be better funded – they say that government cuts have left schools in England at ‘crisis point’. The coalition say that the loss of funding between 2015 and 2020 amounts to over £450 loss of funding per Melksham Oak pupil per year, even if recent promises of extra cash for schools go ahead.
Other schools in the area also face a drop in funding.
Wiltshire Council has also highlighted the inequality of funding of schools across England. According to the council, Wiltshire is the seventh lowest funded authority in the country.
This is despite the recent promise by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to ‘level up’ the funding of England’s schools with billions more in spending over the next three years. The School Cuts coalition says that the investment ‘falls short’ and does not ‘fully reverse the cuts suffered since 2015’.
Wiltshire Council cabinet member for children, education and skills, cllr Pauline Church, told Melksham News, “We have long been highlighting to the government the underfunding of Wiltshire schools. Being the seventh lowest funded authority in the country has meant that our schools have not been as well funded as schools in other areas of the country.
“The introduction of a National Funding Formula for schools was designed to unravel some of the inequities in school funding but has not fully resolved the funding differences across the country, leaving Wiltshire schools still in a poorly funded position.
“The recent pledge by the Prime Minister of an additional £14bn for school funding over the next three years is most welcome news and will help all of our Wiltshire schools with balancing their budgets. Wiltshire Council is working with all of its schools to ensure that they understand the positive impact of this additional funding.”
More information about the ‘School Cuts’ coalition’s campaign can be found on: www.schoolcuts .org.uk
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