The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has published its annual report on education spending in England. The key findings can be read here, and include:
- Since the early 2000s, there have been large falls in spending on adult education.
- Part of the fall in adult education spending has been replaced by higher spending on apprenticeships. However, total spending on adult education and apprenticeships combined is still about 35% down on 2009–10 in real terms.
- There has been a large rise in the number of adults (aged 19+) participating in apprenticeships (from 460,000 in 2010–11 to 580,000 in 2018–19).
- There could be a sharp increase in student numbers in colleges and sixth forms in 2020. Population projections imply a 3% growth in the number of 16- and 17-year-olds in 2020 and growth of 13% between 2019 and 2023. The economic downturn itself could then lead to an increase in the rate of participation.
- Responding to these changes in participation will be challenging given that providers’ funding is set based on lagged student numbers. The government has already provided an extra £400 million for 16–18 education in 2020–21. This implies real-terms growth in spending per pupil of about 2% based on population forecasts. However, exceptional growth in student numbers could easily erode much, if not all, of this planned real-terms increase in spending per student. The 16–19 funding system does have mechanisms to address significant within-year growth in student numbers. However, this is ‘subject to affordability’ and it is not designed to address significant sector-wide growth.