When I first heard that UK was going to leave the EU, I was unsure of what lay ahead. Sure, the government assured us that we were on the right track but as humans, doubt lingers in most of our decisions. We went through with the move and lay in wait for the changes that would come, and one such change has been in our school funding.
The education secretary Justice Greening stated that they would bring in changes to the funding systems for schools in England to make the processes much more accountable than they were before. The amendments to be made were made public towards the end of 2016 and not all were happy about the proposed changes. Some parents felt that the shift in funding would later come to haunt them as their schools would lose out. Some protests got based on this premise, and the education secretary had to step in to make the record straight.
Greening further explained that a pupil would get a minimal funding of three thousand five hundred pounds, something that the government hoped to achieve by the time we get to 2020. However, concerns were that the increased inflation in the country would undermine the amount of money that children were getting. However, controversy arose when parents realized that they had received different quotes and they demanded answers as to why some of them were getting less than the others.
Old system
This system of funding got met with a lot of protests from people across the country who felt that it was out to reduce the amount of money they received. As such, Greening looked for funding sources outside the education budget and promised that she would release an additional one point three billion pounds to the schools over two years. This statement got made in July.
Having updated the formula, she told members of parliament in the country that the system would work to deal with the inequalities that had long existed in the funding system. With the money going to the right places, the government could then work to improve the school systems and give children the facilities they required.
She stated that for a very long time, some regions received more funding yet the reasons were unclear. Greening reasoned that it was not right for two schools with the same diet and facilities to receive different levels of funding and yet their costs are similar. For secondary school kids, they would get four thousand eight hundred pounds as from July. Most schools would experience an increase in funding by an average of one percent by 2020 while those who had long received little money would see a three percent increment.
The money allocated to schools will be under the care of the local authorities who will then distribute it as per the needs of the institutions. Some people feel that the funding is too low to meet the level of education that we would like to have in our schools.
I feel that though the increments may be lower than expected, it is a step in the right direction and we can look forward to more positive changes in our education sector.