Education

School spending per pupil highest in Scotland, lowest in Northern Ireland

Stephen Richard — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 21:24:13 +0000

School spending per pupil highest in Scotland, lowest in Northern Ireland

Primary Author or Creator

Luke Sibieta

Stephen Richard Tue, 10/26/2021 - 22:24

Additional Author(s) / Creators

Institute for Fiscal Studies

Date Published

Fri, 10/22/2021 - 12:00

Category

Education

Fast Facts

In the current year (2021–22), core school spending per pupil is expected to be highest in Scotland (over £7,500) compared to England (£6,700) and Wales (£6,600), and lowest in Northern Ireland (£6,400).

More details

Scotland: Spending per pupil fell by 7% in real terms between 2009–10 and 2014–15. In contrast to the rest of the UK, there has since been a big recovery in spending per pupil. This was partially driven by the large increases in teacher pay in Scotland in 2018 and 2019, as well as extra COVID spending (not included in figures for other nations). However, even after making plausible adjustments, core spending per pupil in Scotland in 2021–22 is still likely to be over 6% higher than in 2009–10 and over £800 higher than in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Luke Sibieta, IFS Research Fellow and author, said:

‘Over the last decade, there were cuts to school spending per pupil right across the UK. In Scotland, large recent increases mean that spending has more than recovered and core spending per pupil is now likely to be over £800 higher than in the rest of the UK. Despite recent increases, spending per pupil in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is still close to or just below levels seen a decade earlier.

‘However, it is important to remember higher spending need not automatically translate into better educational outcomes. Indeed, international comparisons of test scores suggest numeracy and science scores were declining in high-spending Scotland relative to the OECD average up to 2018. It remains to be seen whether extra spending in Scotland since 2018 will arrest this trend.’

Josh Hillman, Director of Education at the Nuffield Foundation, said:

‘This IFS analysis shows that the increasing divergence in education policy between the four nations of the UK extends to school spending per pupil, where funding to support Scottish pupils has held up better than for their counterparts in the other nations. A major cause for concern is that funding for education recovery programmes in response to the pandemic is much lower across all four nations than those being implemented in comparable countries.’

Resource Address (URL)

https://ifs.org.uk/publications/15764

Keywords

Education

Scottish educational expenditure

Language English

Class Rules: the truth about Scottish schools: review

Stephen Richard — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 10:33:52 +0000

Class Rules: the truth about Scottish schools: review

Primary Author or Creator

Sue Palmer

Stephen Richard Tue, 10/12/2021 - 11:33

Additional Author(s) / Creators

Bella Caledonia

Date Published

Tue, 10/12/2021 - 12:00

Category

Education

Type of Resource

News Item

Fast Facts

A supportive review of the book "Class Rules: the truth about Scottish schools"

Resource Address (URL)

https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2021/10/12/class-rules-the-truth-about-scottish-s…

Keywords

Education

Educational attainment gap

Schools

Language English

Class Rules: the Truth about Scottish Schools

Stephen Richard — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 10:28:19 +0000

Class Rules: the Truth about Scottish Schools

Primary Author or Creator

James McEnaney

Stephen Richard Tue, 10/12/2021 - 11:28

Alternative Published Date

2021

Category

Education

Length (Pages, words, minutes etc...)

238pp

Fast Facts

James McEnaney tells the truth about Scottish schools. Class Rules makes the key issues about Scotland's education system accessible to all. He delves into the successes and failures of the Curriculum for Excellence. He interrogates the rhetoric around closing the 'attainment gap' between the richest and poorest pupils. And he considers the impact of the global Covid-19 pandemic. This book looks to the future to ask what changes can be made to improve the system for young people across the country. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the future of schools in Scotland.

Resource Address (URL)

https://uk.bookshop.org/books/class-rules-the-truth-about-scottish-schools/9781…

Keywords

Education

Schools

Curriculum for Excellence

Educational attainment gap

Language English

Populism, democracy and a pedagogy of renewal

Stephen Richard — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 18:53:39 +0000

Populism, democracy and a pedagogy of renewal

Primary Author or Creator

Margaret Petrie

Stephen Richard Fri, 09/24/2021 - 19:53

Additional Author(s) / Creators

Callum McGregor, Jim Crowther

Date Published

Thu, 05/23/2019 - 12:00

Category

Education

Democracy

Type of Resource

Academic Paper

Length (Pages, words, minutes etc...)

1mB

Fast Facts

we explore the implications of populism for adult education aimed at defending and extending democratic life. We question the conflation of agonistic democracy with left populism on several grounds, and we consider how a focus on education might help to ground their theory and clarify its ambiguities.

More details

Laclau and Mouffe have long argued the democratic possibilities of ‘left populism’ underpinned by their agonistic critique of liberal democracy. We are currently witnessing the attempted application of their theories by European political parties. However, there remains very little international scholarship taking up the challenge of situating these arguments in the broader literature on the relationship between democracy and education. We argue that this is an urgent task, particularly in the context of populist trends which appear inimical to educational practice. Thus, we explore the implications of populism for adult education aimed at defending and extending democratic life. We question the conflation of agonistic democracy with left populism on several grounds, and we consider how a focus on education might help to ground their theory and clarify its ambiguities. We argue that adult educators can surface aspects of the context which representations of populism on the one hand, and populist representations on the other, often hide. Our argument is illustrated through two vignettes of populist events and the educational problems and opportunities they posed.

International Journal of Lifelong Education, Volume 38, 2019 - Issue 5 Full article behind a paywall

Resource Address (URL)

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02601370.2019.1617798

Keywords

Populism

Democracy

Adult education

Language English

An Equal Start: A plan for equality in early learning and care in Scotland

Stephen Richard — Tue, 17 Aug 2021 08:23:47 +0000

An Equal Start: A plan for equality in early learning and care in Scotland

Primary Author or Creator

Common Weal

Stephen Richard Tue, 08/17/2021 - 09:23

Additional Author(s) / Creators

John Davis, Rona MacNicol Lynn McNair, Jamie Mann Melissa O’Neill, Ben Wray

Alternative Published Date

January 2016

Category

Education

Type of Resource

Policy Paper

Fast Facts

his report is a plan for delivering this change through a National Childcare Service in public provision, as a replacement for the fragmented, haphazard and unequal nature of the childcare sector at present. The report provides a comprehensive, costed strategy for achieving this transformation.

More details

The target to double childcare provision will require radical changes to the infrastructure to deliver that care. Current architecture cannot be easily or simply scaled up. Current plans would place the burden of funding the changes on Local Authorities without giving them additional resources to cover it. A National Childcare Service could be established by 2020 to deliver these services. The buy-out and nationalisation of private childcare services would be optional though services that refuse would have to demonstrate that they meet or exceed the standards of care offered by the national service to qualify for state funding. In societies that have high levels of equality, fairness and prosperity, early years learning and care is treated with the same seriousness as school education. Setting our ambitions any lower than this would be a dereliction of our responsibilities to future generations of Scots.

Resource Address (URL)

https://commonweal.scot/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/An-Equal-Start-Full.pdf

Keywords

Child care

Early years education

National Child Care Service

Language English