Government to start closing secondary schools
All the talk has been about closing small rural primary schools, but in fact the government is going to fund its education plans by closing secondary schools in urban areas. This is because 10% of secondary schools have 25% spare places - making a total of 792,000 spare places out of a total number of available places of 3.2 million.
There are two big problems with school closures. First many parents feel an emotional attachment to a school in their area, and so generally don’t like one closing. It feels to many as if the area is being devalued or downgraded in some way.
But also, the downturn is not permanent - in a number of years time the places will be needed again. At the moment the number of pupils entering primary school is stable, and will rise in the coming years.
However there is one huge advantage (apart from the saving on money). A huge number of schools are in poor condition, having been built cheaply in the 60s and 70s, and then starved of maintenance funding ever since.
The new plans will affect the Building Schools for the Future programme, by making it less likely that the particularly old or decrepit schools will be upgraded.
All local authorities will be asked to draw up a schedule of schools that could be closed because they have too many spare places.
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