MANY of the education “cold spots” identified for levelling-up funding have been decimated by the government’s own austerity cuts over the last decade, the National Education Union (NEU) pointed out yesterday.

Ahead of the expected publication of the long-delayed levelling up white paper today, Tory ministers have announced that 55 parts of England where education outcomes are weakest will receive targeted support. 

Teachers in places such as Rochdale, the Isle of Wight and Walsall will be offered a “levelling up premium” to improve retention, while schools judged less than “good” in successive Ofsted inspections could be incorporated into multi-academy trusts. 

But NEU joint general secretary Kevin Courtney warned that the worst-performing schools have been among the hardest hit by cuts to education funding since 2010, saying that this had happened on the Tory government’s “own watch” so the problem was “entirely of its own making.”

Last year the National Audit Office warned that the government’s funding formula, implemented in 2018-19, had caused a “relative redistribution of funding from the most deprived schools to the least deprived.”

While per pupil funding in the richest 20 per cent of schools has risen by 2.9 per cent in real terms, the poorest 20 per cent have seen a 1.2 per cent cut. 

Mr Courtney said: “The sums being promised will not make up for what has been cut. If the government was serious about levelling up education, then it would restore all the money it has cut.

“Only through serious investment will we meet the ambition that all parents and staff have for the children they teach.”

As part of plans to “rethink education” in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, he called for a “culture shift” in the national curriculum, arguing that “piecemeal reform won’t adequately address our current ‘exam factory’ culture.”

Mr Courtney also urged ministers to commit to a “proper strategy to eradicate child poverty, because poverty can so strongly determine young people’s life chances and ambitions.”  

Additionally, Prospect union head Mike Clancy told ministers yesterday that their white paper was a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to reset the economy by bringing prosperity to all regions.” 

He added: “Levelling up must be more than lofty rhetoric to distract from current scandals in Westminster – it requires sustainable, long-term and strategic investment.”