This week, Rikama Education reported on Michael Gove pledging £1bn to schools which, in our opinion, is not enough to govern the problems that schools are having. Now, Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock are trying to ‘outspend’ Gove by pledging £5,000 per pupil and £3bn respectively; nearly twice as much on secondary school pupils as Mr Johnson.
Without going into where the funds are coming from to begin with, we must ask if there will be rules with this funding so that schools know exactly what they must spend the money on. Rikama Education reported on an instance a few months ago detailing that additional funds were ‘not allocated sufficiently’ which led to schools spending money inappropriately.
In addition to this funding, which no doubt somebody else will throw their hat into the ring soon to pledge even more money than Mr Hancock, the government are thinking of ‘small-scale top-up payments’ of £2,000 for Stem teachers to move to disadvantaged areas. A £2,000 pay increase would be nice however is this enough to persuade teachers to move to struggling areas, I have my doubts.
