General election manifesto plans of all three major parties’ proposals will leave spending for 16 to 18-year-olds around 10 per cent lower than secondary schools, according to new analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
The think tank says that while the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats are all proposing to spend more on this age group over the course of the next parliament, only Labour’s spending plans will result in a real-terms increase.
The other two parties would, meanwhile, do enough to keep per-pupil spending for 16 to 18-year-olds constant in real terms.
And the IFS also says that although the Labour and Conservative proposals for sixth form funding “would represent larger increases” than their commitments on schools spending, “all would leave spending per 16 to 18 year-old pupils around 10 per cent lower than the parties’ respective proposals for secondary schools”.
The IFS said: “The Conservative manifesto.. would effectively result in a real-terms freeze in 16-18 spending per pupil over the next parliament.
However, the IFS added, these plans would still leave spending per pupil on 16 to 18 year olds in 2021-22 around 14 per cent below its peak in 2011-12.
Labour’s proposals would, according to the IFS, increase 16-18 spending per pupil to £5,800, a real increase of 8 per cent over the parliament.
But “this would still leave spending per student in 16-18 education about 11 per cent below that for secondary schools in 2021–22”.
According to the IFS, spending on 16 to 18-year-olds has “fared substantially worse” than other areas of education funding.
Spending per 16 to 18-year-old pupil in 1990-91 was more than 50 per cent higher than spending per secondary school pupil, but by 2017–18 it was 13 per cent lower. This decline was the result of deeper cuts in the 1990s, slower growth in the 2000s, and being one of the only areas of education spending to be cut under the coalition government, the IFS says.
It also looked at costings for new T-levels, set to result from last year’s wide-ranging review of technical education by Lord Sainsbury.
It said: “In Budget 2017, the Conservative government committed to following the recommendations of the Sainsbury review for post-16 education.
It recognised that the Conservative government committed £420 million of additional investment in 2021-22 for the implementation of these reforms.