School Funding
Debate between Thelma Walker and Mohammad Yasin(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Thelma Walker (Colne Valley) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) for leading the debate.
Last week, I spoke in the estimates debate on education funding, appealing for increased funding for our schools and colleges. Seemingly, every Education Committee inquiry references the lack of appropriate funding, or misdirected funding, as a cause of many of the problems. As a teacher and headteacher of 34 years—I am not speaking politically now, but personally, as a professional—I get so frustrated by the fact that we, and teachers, have to come cap in hand to such debates to appeal for funding so often, when it is every child’s right to have a quality education. However, I thank the teachers, head- teachers and parents who signed the petition and brought it to Parliament for the debate.
My colleagues, both in education and in politics, will no doubt agree that the passion and determination of those in the education sector should never be underestimated. That passion drives teachers, teaching assistants and others, who want children to get the best education possible, to take on extra work and responsibilities, or to use their own money to buy learning resources that schools cannot afford. However, it should not be like that. It should not be the case that 95% of schools in my constituency are facing real-terms cuts in per-pupil funding.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
Schools in my constituency in Bedford and Kempston will lose £1,000 per primary school class, and £1,600 per secondary school class, despite the Government’s promises that the national funding formula would fix everything. The reality is that class sizes are going up, and school funding is going down. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government are hopelessly out of touch regarding the crisis in our schools, and parents, teachers and pupils know better than to be fooled by paltry funding for “little extras”?