Sixth form cuts 'are disastrous'

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Teaching unions claim a decision to cut sixth form and further education budgets in Wales will be "disastrous".

They say some schools could lose a quarter of their sixth form budgets and courses and jobs may disappear.

From 1 April the Welsh Assembly Government will cut budgets for the education of 16-18-year-olds by 7.4%.

Assembly government minister John Griffiths said the cut reflected a tight budget across departments, but it would not narrow student choice.

Teachers' representatives claim that the situation is made worse because once cuts are passed on to schools by local authorities they will not be capped at 7.4%.

Anna Brychan, director of the National Association of Head Teachers Cymru, (NAHT) told Sunday's The Politics Show Wales that some schools were reporting a cut in their post-16 budget of up to 28%. It makes the funding system post-16 unstable and inevitably puts jobs at risk Anna Brychan, National Association of Head Teachers Cymru

"That's a huge, unexpected reduction," she said.

"It's not sustainable, it makes the funding system post-16 unstable and inevitably puts jobs at risk."

She also said many NAHT members thought there was a "hidden agenda" to move away from having sixth forms in schools, and that "a very great number of them" feared for the future of sixth forms in Wales.

Brian Lightman, the immediate past president of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: "I think it's going to have an absolutely disastrous effect on the operation of post-16 education in Wales.

"It's a massive cut and it's been applied across the board."

Unions said the threat to teaching jobs was considerable, and schools would not be able to offer as wide a range of courses.

Student choice

They argued that that flew in the face of the stated intention to increase the breadth of the post-16 curriculum, and put young people in Wales at a disadvantage, compared to elsewhere in the UK.

Mr Lightman said: "There's never been a time where getting qualifications and staying on in education has been more important, and if we compare the situation in England where they're raising the participation age to 18, you're seeing a situation here where some students may not be able to access precisely those qualifications they're going to need to be competitive in a very very difficult employment market."

But Mr Griffiths said the assembly government's learning and skills measure, which is in the process of becoming law, would actually increase student choice.

He added: "Of course there are funding issues and that 7.4% cut was produced because of the very tight funding settlement that we face in the Welsh Assembly Government."

Conservative AM Andrew RT Davies said people would wonder why the Department for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills needed to implement this cut, given that it will have a 5% rise in its overall budget.

He claims the department miscalculated the cost of other policies such as the Foundation Phase for young children.

Mr Davies said: "They are robbing Peter to pay Paul."

Mr Griffiths, the deputy minister for skills, also denied speculation raised by some that the assembly government wanted to see an end to sixth forms within schools in favour of a post-16 education system centred on sixth form colleges and further education institutions.

He said the assembly government did want post-16 education to change, and some areas might favour a tertiary system with sixth form colleges, whilst others would see closer working between school sixth forms and FE colleges.

The Politics Show Wales is on BBC One Wales from 12 noon on Sunday, 1 March.