Schools in Wales face a major crisis due to low pay and lack of funding and "would crumble overnight" if staff did not work extra hours for free, a head teacher has claimed. Lee Jarvis, head teacher at St Martin's School in Caerphilly, said schools in Wales were facing a "crisis of funding" which has left some on the verge of collapse.
Schools are falling victim to "sustained underfunding of our public services" which has left older school buildings "falling down" while others are only kept going because staff are working longer hours for no additional pay, Mr Jarvis said this week. Schools are also reportedly facing eyewatering increases in catering bills, energy costs, and the price of building repairs.
It comes after a new survey revealed most schools in Wales are considering making redundancies in order to save costs. The National Association of Headteachers Cymru (NAHT Cymru), surveyed 670 school leaders and found many are "desperate" to cut costs with 73% of head teachers surveyed saying they will have to make teaching assistants redundant or reduce their hours and 61% of head teachers saying they are looking to reduce the number of teachers or teaching hours to save cash.
Read more: Most schools in Wales are looking at redundancies
On Monday the Welsh Government confirmed teachers and assistants will receive a 5% pay rise – approximately half of the current rate of inflation – which unions have called an "insult" and which leaves the door open for possible industrial action. In a statement on Monday Wales' education minister Jeremy Miles said he "accepted "that some may be disappointed that a higher award could not be provided and recognise the legitimate right of all workers to seek a fair and decent pay rise during this challenging time of inflation and cost of living rises". You can read the full story on the pay rise here.
Mr Jarvis said the crises happening across different sectors – including in schools – had been "a long time coming" and were due to "sustained underfunding of our public services". He said: "We desperately need to reprioritise and consider our core values as a country. Do we want the best education system in the world, do we want our people to receive the best healthcare available to them, and do we want our people to be living in communities that care for each other?"
"There really is a crisis of funding in our education system and it is not right that our children are being educated in schools that are falling down around them and where school leaders cannot recruit teachers because teachers and support staff are not paid properly for the work that they do and are not paid for the additional work that they do to keep schools running.
"Simply put, if teachers and support staff only worked their contracted hours the entire schools system would crumble overnight. Schools are only functioning due to the commitment of the people who are committed to the children and therefore put an additional 50% of their time into them free of charge and to the detriment of their own family's and lives."
Mr Jarvis said the Welsh school system was run on "50% government funding and 50% volunteers" and that this added to other issues including a lack of recognition of the impact of inflation on everyday school costs. He said was made worse by many older school buildings being "archaic" with many dating back to the 1900s and without insulation, modern heating systems, and double glazing.
"Schools like these with utilities bills which annually compare to the purchase price of an ex-coalminer's cottage are making the decision between employing teachers or heating the school or making people redundant in order to fix the holes in the roof," he said.
"This really is not the environment we want our children to be educated in. A school should be a warm welcoming friendly place to be, where children who face hardships at home as a result of the cost of living crisis come to be cared for and inspired so that their brilliant minds can be opened up to the possibilities that await them in the future."
Mr Jarvis said schools had seen their weekly catering bill increased by 10% while heating costs had risen by 50% and said schools were unable to fund building repairs due to supply chain and material costs as well as supply staff costing a school £250 a day to cover for unfilled vacancies. "This is a crisis and it is a crisis at the heart of our communities that will destroy our future prospects as a nation and it is simply a crisis due to substantive and significant underfunding for generations," he added. "Our children deserve better and our schools are at the heart of our country's recovery and need the investment to be able to grow future generations minds to prevent future crises."
A Welsh Government spokesman said: "We recognise that high levels of inflation and energy costs are causing financial pressures on our public services, and we remain committed to doing everything we can to support them. The significant levels of funding needed requires the UK Government to act urgently. The Welsh Government’s budget is now worth £4bn less over the next three years and that is before budget cuts the UK Government is potentially going to announce later this week. Wales’s funding must be restored by the UK Government to help protect jobs and support our public services.
"We acknowledge that figures published recently show that overall school budget reserves remain very high. Local authorities and schools are already discussing how to deploy their reserves and we will support them in that.”
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