Schools are unable to hire enough teachers to properly support learning, a survey of nearly 4,000 teaching staff shows.
More than nine in 10 teachers (92 per cent) who responded to the NEU teaching union member survey said their school did not have enough funding to employ enough teachers or other staff.
Primary school teachers were the most likely to say this, with 80 per cent strongly disagreeing that their school had funding for enough staff.
And well over eight in 10 (85 per cent) of staff said that current funding levels meant their school could not provide appropriate learning resources for pupils.
The NEU is calling for “a major shift and significant investment in schools” to address these concerns in the Autumn Statement later this month, in which the chancellor will announce the government’s spending priorities.
Unions have called for the government to increase spending on school buildings to £7 billion a year in the Autumn statement. Meanwhile, research by the Confederation of School Trusts has shown that nearly one-fifth of academy trusts do not feel confident in their future financial sustainability.
Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU, said: “This survey reveals widespread dissatisfaction with the effort government is taking to properly fund and support schools. Clear majorities say funding levels are inadequate on all measures, and very few members agree there is enough investment in the system.
“This is not a matter of perception. In 2020 we spent 4.3 per cent of national income on education and the [Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries’] average was 5 per cent ≠ and we know the UK share has fallen back since to under 4 per cent.”
Teacher shortages ‘due to lack of funding’
The NEU surveyed 3,981 of its members last month. Older teachers were slightly more likely than their younger colleagues to say that underfunding was impacting on learning resource, the union said.
Only 15 per cent of respondents said there had been enough investment in the upkeep of their school buildings.
One secondary teacher from Staffordshire said: “The smell from the mouldy, stained carpet is horrendous. We have leaks and mould in a lot of rooms.”
Another member in Norfolk said a leaking roof meant their school had to block off parts of the building when it rained.
In a report released last month, the Centre for Progressive Policy said UK education spending had grown by around 40 per cent in real terms over the past two decades. Despite this, researchers projected that spending would need to grow by nearly £9.8 billion a year to sustain schools as they stand currently.
Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) found that the strain on school budgets was due to school costs growing at around the same rate as funding. IFS researchers estimated schools would have an average purchasing power of 3 per cent less in 2024 compared with 2010, despite the increases in funding.
A DfE spokesperson said that school funding is reaching the “highest level in history” this year, including “an additional £2 billion for both this year and next, announced at the last Autumn Statement, recognising the higher costs schools are facing and matching both inflation and what the unions told us was needed”.
The spokesperson added: “It also includes a further £525 million in 2023-24 and £900 million in 2024-25, announced over the summer, to support the teachers’ pay award, and we are providing up to £40 million additional funding in 2023-24 for schools in financial difficulty.”
