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The Pros And Cons Of Britain's Education Cuts

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During the 2000s, the education sector experienced a rapid growth of public spending, increasing by 5.1% per year. However, this approach will be swiftly retracted in the upcoming years as Britain’s education budget is slashed by the largest amount since the 1950s. Unfortunately this reduction in spending is unavoidable but what needs to be addressed immediately are the possible disadvantages that this may have on Britain’s children. Will increased spending per pupil benefit children? Perhaps the reason the government is so readily able to make these cuts is because the difference in children’s ability will not change significantly with or without these additional resources. It is also interesting to compare Britain with the top ranking …show more content…

This is not purely coincidence, but due to several factors such as improved curricula, better-quality resources, teachers becoming more qualified – all fundamentally coming down to one thing – money. There are critics of this who believe that money does not matter (in terms of additional resources and teaching assistants etc.) and it is solely the child and their genes that need to be cultivated through teaching, however this is a fallacy. Of course, some children will progress further than others due to their genetic make-up, yet in this day and age, it is conceivable to bring all children to a certain level of intelligence, regardless of their initial aptitude. It is also unfair to just consider mainstream children within this judgement, as Special Needs children as well as Gifted and Talented pupils have proved that spending also improves their attainment greatly. Professor Bruce Baker of the Shanker Institute has backed this up through a complex study which led him to affirm, “Schooling resources that cost money including smaller class sizes, additional supports, early childhood programs and more competitive teacher compensation are positively associated with student outcomes” . Somewhat surprisingly, the Government have inadvertently agreed with this statement through another study which found that spending can play an important role in educational achievement and that additional school …show more content…

Richard Wellings, of the Institute of Economic Affairs believes that the mechanically talented would benefit more from learning workplace skills, while the academically or artistically gifted might thrive by developing their own interests rather than studying the National Curriculum . These opinions may be valid, but not within his context of proving that the government is spending too much money on education. It proves that more money needs to be spent on giving pupils the scope they desire within their learning or at the very least that the funding already given to schools should be reallocated. Another opposing viewpoint is that sufficient funding is already given to education and increasing this budget will not make a substantial difference in improving pupil’s attainment. Granted, Britain’s education system is by no means sub-par, however it only takes one glance at the ever-rising attainment gap to pinpoint its major flaws. The First Minister launched the Scottish Attainment Challenge in February 2015, after findings revealed that pupils in the wealthiest areas of Scotland are more than six times as likely to get three A’s in their Highers than those in the poorest communities . Its aim is to raise the attainment of young people living in deprived areas, in order to close the equity gap, and will subsequently set the

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