Political bonanza at teacher expense

24th July 1998, 1:00am

Share

Political bonanza at teacher expense

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/political-bonanza-teacher-expense
Wherever there is a genuine increase in resources for education or any other good cause, it is welcome.

The first difficulty is to find out how much, if any, of the various figures trumpeted by the Government publicity machine represents a real increase. For its first two years in office, Labour has stuck to the previous Tory spending plans, imposing yet further cuts on top of the years of annual Tory cuts. So, for most budget areas, 1998-99 is the worst in modern times. Naturally Labour bases all its comparisons on it.

In real terms, allowing for inflation, Labour will spend less in Scotland in the last year of this promised bonanza than the Tories did in 1994-95.

There does seem to be much-needed real growth in higher and further education to make up for the underfunding of recent years. And some aspects of school and pre-school education will benefit from welcome increases.

Our main concerns are:

* The continuing cuts in non-priority areas of council spending some of which, like community education (cut by a third since council reorganisation), recreation and libraries, have an impact on school students.

* The way increased funding is to be tied to “tough output targets”, which could become a bureaucratic nightmare.

* The extensive use of the New Labour version of the private finance initiative to fund capital projects.

Above all, one main pillar of the whole edifice is to keep down the pay of all public employees - no provision for pay increases except for “productivity”.

A Labour political bonanza is to be funded by derisory wage increases for teachers, nurses and all other public employees - apart from the fat cats.

Want to keep reading for free?

Register with Tes and you can read two free articles every month plus you'll have access to our range of award-winning newsletters.

Keep reading for just £1 per month

You've reached your limit of free articles this month. Subscribe for £1 per month for three months and get:

  • Unlimited access to all Tes magazine content
  • Exclusive subscriber-only stories
  • Award-winning email newsletters
Nothing found
Recent
Most read
Most shared