UNISON has welcomed MPs’ call for a ‘multi billion pounds cash injection’ into education.
The call for the investment, together with a proper, longterm funding strategy, comes in a House of Commons education select committee report on education funding in England. The committee found that schools and colleges ‘desperately need’ more money.
UNISON national secretary Jon Richards said its report,
“backs up what UNISON and others have been saying about the funding crisis caused by this government’s real-term cuts.”
The union points out that support staff in schools and colleges have borne the brunt of these cuts. Teaching assistants in secondary schools have been cut by 12%, and technicians across schools by 14%. Teaching assistants in primary schools are being made redundant despite higher pupil numbers, including more children with special educational needs.
Support staff are often trusted adults and confided in by pupils about a huge range of welfare issues, regardless of whether this is expected of them in a formal capacity. But a third of staff in a recent UNISON survey reported that schools had cut the number of staff providing this support in the past year.
Mr Richards called on the government to, “put an end to this national scandal and commit to a long-term plan to end all funding cuts and to fully fund schools and colleges.”