London (UK), November 2011 - Public spending on education in the UK is falling at the fastest rate since the 1950s, according to a report released by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). The report says the biggest challenges ahead are for early-years education, youth services, and sixteen-nineteen education, where spending is set to fall by around twenty percent in real terms.
Until recently, education spending has enjoyed healthy year-on-year increases, but that is set to change. Along with most areas of government spending, education expenditures are set to shrink over the current Spending Review period. What the size of the total cuts will be and how they will be shared across different areas of education spending are, somewhat surprisingly, questions for which answers cannot easily be found in current data published by the Government.
The University and College Union (UCU) said the news was a hammer blow for the country, as applications to post-secondary institutions are decreasing, while youth unemployment is hitting record levels. The Union said that now more than ever, the Government needs to invest in education - the future of the country.
UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, comments, "Other countries are investing in education to compete in the global knowledge economy. The fact we are slashing funding is a real hammer blow, and we will fall further behind. Young people who struggle to afford to stay in education have nowhere else to turn, as youth unemployment approaches the one-million mark. If anyone thinks investing in education is expensive, they should consider the cost of ignorance."
In this Briefing Note, the Institute for Fiscal Studies produces new estimates of the likely cuts to overall public spending on education in the UK up to 2014-15. The IFS also pieced together various published plans for grants and specific components of education spending. This provides the most comprehensive analysis of the pattern of cuts across different areas of education spending published to date.
