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
These changes intended to introduce principles of supply and demand into schools. Schools were forced to compete with each other for pupils and resources. Before the 1988 Act, entry to schools was based on catchment areas and they did not have to compete for children. After 1988, catchment areas still existed but parents had the right to go outside them. Competition was increased and a big part of that was due to league tables and statistics being produced. However, the 1988 Act contains contradictory messages. One message is concerned with increasing centralisation and state control and the second is concerned with parental choice
The government’s expectation for teachers to achieve outstanding has been slowly increasing and has been placing educators under more stress for their pupils to succeed. The delivering of the curriculum should be the most important aspect of a child’s school vocation as this provides them with the foundation of knowledge they will need to gain employment in the future. The expectation from the government on schools within the United Kingdom is to consistently be providing respectable exam results annually and this is how they are being judged by such departments as Ofsted. Should the teachers be continuing to stay within the guidelines of the curriculum? Or should more emphasis be put out there to question whither effective primary teaching is all about just delivering the curriculum to children or based on annual exam results that are collected each year to critic the educational setting. This essay will critically discuss what effective primary teaching is and cover if teaching and learning is really all about results rather than nurturing the child to be prepared for life.
One of the major reforms this policy includes is the implementation of Gonski agreements on time and in full and reversing Malcom Turnbulls’ cuts. With this 37.3 billion investment the Labour Party will see every child in every school is funded based on their needs as they want every child to have the same chance of being successful in school and in life as any other child in the country. Your Child, Our Future will also include reforms that will improve teaching and will allow every school to provide the students with more individual attention and better support for students with a disability. Labour also plans to provide long term funding certainty to schools and will ensure that their investment is actually reaching the classroom and providing evidence of improvement in teaching and learning. Labour recognises that many occupations today require skills in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) and therefore plan to increase the number of qualified STEM teachers. Labour is putting education at the centre of its program for
The Education system of England and Wales underwent a number of important changes since 1944. This essay seeks to concentrate on these major changes describing the rationale and impact they had on the British education system.
“The average net gain of nearly one million pupils a year during the next ten years will over burden our school systems” (Woolley and Peters). They are trying to make the school system better then it is now. “At present salary levels, the classroom cannot compete”(Woolley and Peters). They are saying that they have too many kids in the class rooms. “In financial ten percent of the funds allocated to be used to help meet the unique problems of each states “areas of special educational need” (Woolley and Peters). Saying that they need to help the kids in need at
There are many inequities of public education. Public schools who are wealthier tend to have more classes available, giving the students a wide range of education. Wealthier schools also have higher educational classes than other public schools, for example a wealthier school could have College Algebra but other schools may not have the money to offer that course. Also wealthier schools are able to have more teachers for all the subjects they offer. Most public school students average the same SAT score, as to a student who is attending a private school.
A change in Scotland’s national educational curriculum was first debated in 2002 to highlight the changes needed to be made in order to fully prepare Scotland’s youth for the world outside of school. The debate resulted in the first steps to creating Scotland’s new curriculum for excellence and it was first introduced into some schools in 2004 where it was an option to either carry on with the old 5-14 curriculum, or to switch to the new curriculum. It wasn’t until the 2010/11 school session that it was fully implemented into schools across Scotland. The Curriculum for Excellence’s aim is to “achieve a transformation in education in Scotland by providing a coherent, more flexible and enriched curriculum from 3 to 18.” (Education Scotland, N.D)
Australia is ranked 19th of 26 OECD countries in terms of expenditure on education. Australia is also ranked 55th in the UN league table of spending on education. The amount of funding a public school receives can also effect the amount of students attending that school. " The Commonwealth's State grants report and budget estimates papers reveal that the proportion of federal government funding going to public schools in 1996 was 41.5%. It is estimated that by 2004, federal funding to public schools will be slashed to 34.1% (or $2 billion a year) " (Kemp's bill rips off public education. http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2000/429/429p9.htm)
Although the EYPP does not come with instructions on how it should be spent it can be argued that the money is not used entirely up to the setting. Hampshire county council advise settings to use ‘waves of intervention’ which are categorised in three; the first wave is universal where the EYPP would be spent on supporting the setting as a whole. An example of this wave of intervention would be staff training, ensuring that there are highly knowledgably practitioners supporting and teaching the very youngest of our children from deprived backgrounds (REFERENCE). However good quality teaching would benefit all of the children, even those not receiving the EYPP. An independent study to evaluate the use of pupil premium in schools was commissioned
Everyone has heard the saying “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer” but few people think of schools when they here this phrase. The way our educational system is set up today benefits students in high income areas more than it helps students in low income schools. People in the United States like to think that anyone can achieve greatness if they try hard enough but getting an education is important and being in a well-funded school never hurts. In this country there is a profound lack of funding to our schools and there is an inequality when it comes distributing the funds and it only serves to help some and disadvantage others.
When local property taxes were the primary source of school funding, districts were financially stable and were able to allocate funds for appropriate spendings. With the limitations set on property taxes, school budgets became dependent on the state’s fluctuating economy and tax collections. Fortunately, in 1988, Proposition 98 was passed, which set a minimum base funding for public schools. This proposition guaranteed funding that would grow each year with the changing economy along with student enrollment. This funding, though managed by the state was a combination of state General Fund and local property tax revenues.
One of the greatest differences among public schools is the funding they receive. Public schools across the country have incredibly varied amounts of capital dedicated to them which in turn leads to a disparity in the quality of education a student will receive at these schools. The race of a student, the location they live in, and the wealth of their family greatly correlate to the level of education they will receive. As Harvard professor Jennifer L. Hochschild notes, “Districts with a lot of poor students have lower average test scores and higher dropout rates...The highest spending districts report high test scores, and some of the lowest spending districts report the lowest test scores” (“Social Class in Public Schools.”). The students who attend schools that receive less funding typically obtain an education that is lesser in comparison to schools that receive more money. The inequality in funding within a state has a severe impact on the variation of education quality. In the case of Connecticut, “The district that spends the most provides almost twice as much per student as the district that spends the least” (“Social Class in Public Schools.”). As a result, the schools that receive less funding work with more outdated textbooks and equipment, while schools with more funding can afford to buy new equipment and provide a better environment for the
Tracing the life of a child, he shows how an initial slow start can cause the child to lag further behind as time goes on. What struck me the most about this was how early children’s life courses are set – even before birth. Barry lists poor nutrition during pregnancy, lack of paid parental leave, and low-quality medical care in childbirth as factors that can permanently impact the child’s future learning abilities. And when students carry their environmental disadvantages into schools, Barry ways schools become places where these hindrances are “compounded and not corrected for.” These early life experiences often disqualify students from even reaching college and getting a degree, which is becoming necessary for obtain a well-paying job. In this way, education seems to become a trap – education is a way out of poverty, but poverty is a hindrance to education. The ways in which inequality compounds in schools challenges how I think about the role schools play in society as educational institutions. By looking at how disadvantages and advantages accumulate through the course of schooling, I can better understand how schools contribute to wider social
Is the feeling of the cannabis high worth the academic and social side effects? This has been a question asked around many campuses across the state of Colorado. Ever since marijuana became legal in Colorado, it has become a hot topic on whether or not a college should allow their students to participate in the intake of cannabis products. College students and Universities as a whole are hindered by the availability and side effects of marijuana.
The OECD report wasn’t alone in highlighting these issues. The Labour Party policy document “Challenge and Change in Education” 1963, highlighted a lot of the same