Pressure On School Budgets Means Drop In Quality Of Education And Job Losses

27 Mar 2015

Avril Chambers, GMB national officer for school support staff said, “GMB is alarmed that if the additional pressures on schools budgets is not taken seriously and addressed immediately by the incoming Government there will be long term consequences. Cuts will lead to a deterioration of the quality of education our children receive, but also to massive job losses for Teaching Assistants and all other school support staff, all of whom are vital and integral to improving the learning environment and educational outcomes of our next generation.

Many of the forthcoming additional costs have been imposed on schools by Government policy, and GMB think therefore they should at least have the decency to cover them by increasing spending accordingly. Only the Labour Party has committed to at least protect and increase by at least the rate of inflation but we think this is still not good enough, and we will continue to campaign for more.

GMB has already been told by a large number of the Multi Academy Trusts that they will not be able to avoid large scale restructures leading to staff reductions if the situation for school funding is not increased for the 2016 academic year. This will ultimately mean a return to pre 1997, whereby we saw unqualified, untrained, undervalued and underpaid staff assisting in the running and delivery of education to our children.”