Whatever happened to the “millennium baby boom”? England’s primary school population has been declining ever since it last peaked in January 1998. And there is no sign of an upturn.
By January of this year, there were already 98,000 fewer pupils than in 1998. The Department for Education and Skills now expects primary rolls to fall by a further 400,000 over the next 10 years. The last time rolls were this low was 1988.
By contrast, secondary rolls are set to peak in January 2004 with a total of around 3.5 million pupils - slightly lower than the number predicted last year. But it is expected that secondary rolls will fall by more than 250,000 between 2004 and 2012. The final total will depend on how many continue to choose sixth forms or other types of study. This decline will have important implications for education in general and teacher supply in particular. Half a million fewer primary pupils could mean either smaller classes or more than 20,000 fewer teachers. For the secondary sector it could mean 16,000 fewer teachers.
Many teachers are due to retire in the next decade, so this level of reduction in the teaching force can probably be accommodated without too many job losses. But there may be regional difficulties, especially for primary teachers, unless decision-makers make the necessary adjustments, particularly when allocating teacher-training places.
It is also possible that oversubscribed schools will be less of a headache for policy-makers in the near future. Instead, the most intense debate may be over which schools to close.
John Howson is a director of Education Data Surveys and a visiting professor at Oxford Brookes University. Email: john.howson@lineone.net
