The mayor of London has said he wants new powers over education budgets to tackle funding and teacher recruitment problems facing the capital’s schools.
Sadiq Khan was speaking to TES after he launched his Annual Education Report, which said that while the capital had the highest standards in England, it lags behind other countries such as Finland and Canada.
Asked whether he needed new powers to ensure the success of education in London, he said: “Devolution of budgets would help. Devolution of power over planning of schools would help. Those are two examples of the difference we could make.”
The mayor highlighted the impact of the government’s proposed national funding formula, which would see 70 per cent of schools in London lose money, on top of real-terms cuts of 8 per cent which the National Audit office says schools face.
Mr Khan listed challenges including teacher recruitment and retention, and improving results year-on-year, which were particularly important “at the time when we are leaving the European Union, which means we have to be skilling up our youngsters for the jobs of tomorrow, and we have competitors around the world who invest more in education.
“[Cutting school budgets] is a false economy and if we had more powers in London we could take action to address that.”
He said education in the capital also suffered from a lack of coordination over where new school places are provided.
‘We need to protect the arts’
“We know there is a shortage of primary and secondary school places across London,” he said, “but because there is a lack of coordination, due to lack of powers, what often happens is new schools that open up, open up in areas where you would argue there is not the greatest need.
“We have got to make sure schools are opening in the right places but someone is planning strategically for the long-term future.”
The mayor warned that Brexit could damage London schools if it made staff recruitment harder, adding: “If you look at the number of teachers and support staff who are originally from overseas, immigration benefits the ability of schools to recruit staff, including support staff, not just teachers.”
He also raised concerns that the English Baccalaureate was reducing the arts in schools.
“When you speak to successful people in science or tech, they say one of the things that leads to lateral thinking is people doing arts. It makes you think innovatively, think differently. Not only does the teaching of arts in school lead to future artists, it helps people in different sectors in how the brain functions,” Mr Khan said.
“That’s why you are seeing curriculums in the Far East introducing arts at a time when we are taking them away. It doesn’t make sense.”
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