Budget cuts will hit education service

DEEP cuts to Kent's education service now look inevitable, after they were approved by Labour and liberal Democrat county councillors.

Kent County Council's opposition Conservatives walked out of last week's education committee meeting after the debate was cut short.

Seven councillors wanted to speak on the funding crisis, but a guillotine motion was passed by the ruling groups and a vote was taken.

Cuts worth £9.3million for the 1995-6 budget were agreed, to ensure that the council does not break its Government spending limit. They include:
* Cutting school funding by two and a half per cent in real terms, £2.4 million down, leading to job losses among teachers.
* Stopping all discretionary grants for further education, saving £2.5 million.
* Scrapping transport subsidies for students aged over 16, unless the student or their parents claim income support, saving £800,000.
* Slashing administration at Maidstone and at area offices, with 50 jobs being lost, recouping £1.8 million.
* Cutting £600,000 from Kent's Adult Education Service. Some adult education centres may close.
* Shrinking funding to Kent's youth and community service buy £200,000. Youth clubs will be hit.
* Cutting back on in service teacher training, saving £250,000.

Proposing the budget cuts, Labour committee co-chairman Cllr Joyce Esterson said: "I have a heavy heart as I move this.

"It's a dreadful situation. I am having to propose a budget that is the last thing that I would have wanted to move."

She blamed Government spending restrictions for the cutbacks. The county council's cash limit this year is an increase of just 0.6 per cent on last year.

This increase has been eaten up by increased debt charges and does not cover inflation and wage rises, say the ruling groups.

But the education committee has been given a better budget than many other committees, such as the highways and transport committee.

An extra £6.8 million will be spent next year on special needs education, to meet the council's duties, according to new Government laws.

There will be £5.9 million spent on an estimated extra 4,000 pupils who will be joining Kent primary schools.

The cuts will help pay for this and also an extra £500,000 for junior schools.

The ruling groups say they are being forced by the budget squeeze to prioritise special needs and teaching new pupils.

Adult education centres will be hit by the cuts but Barry Brooks, community education manager at Deal Adult Education Centre, said he hoped the Deal centre was not in danger.

"Cuts would make the service even more vulnerable - a service that is nationally recognised as the largest and most successful adult education service in the country.

"But we have to wait and see what the outcome is - we are in the hands of the politicians."

Mr Brooks said there was no fear of the Deal centre closing: "We have been in rough waters before but adult education is a people-based service and as long as people want to learn there will be opportunities for them."

"The only way I can see they will raise the money is to hit fees," he said.

Eastry Primary head teacher Terry James, whose school is near Sandwich, said the blame for the cuts seems to lie with central government.

"But I am not letting the county council off the hook," said Mr James, who has been campaigning for years to have his mobile classrooms replaced by purpose-built brick buildings.

He is particularly worried about possible cuts in the number of teachers in the county, especially as there is not a maximum class size in Kent.

"If we lose teachers then the pupil-teacher ratio goes up. Central government and the county council seem to blame each other for the cutbacks, but it is always the schools which are at the sharp edge. We have to make the education system work," said Mr James.

IT is hard to imagine £9 million: it would be a jackpot win on the National lottery or it would buy nine houses in Chelsea.

But this year, the people of Kent will understand what £9 million means: it has been cut from the budget of their county council.

Services are to be axed from education, social services. highways. register offices and trading standards in the 1995-6 budget.

County councillors blame the Government for giving them an unreasonably low cash limit of £955million: an 0.6 per cent increase in real terms.

They say this does not cover the cost of inflation, let alone rises in pension contributions and in the number of schoolchildren.

Opposition Conservatives say that County Hall's bureaucracy should be pruned to reduce the grassroots effect of cuts.

But its ruling labour and Liberal Democrat groups say the Department of the Environment has tied them in a financial straitjacket.

Whatever their cause, the Mercury has taken a look at the cuts and spoken to the people of Kent who will be affected by them.

Reports by: KEITH NUTHALL, JANE MIMILLINGTON and SOPHIE WILLIAMS.
 

Students will suffer

STUDENTS are likely to be hard hit by the proposed cuts which would see the end of discretionary grants and travel subsidies.

The proposed changes will make it even more difficult for people from less well-off families to afford to study beyond 16.

Almost certainly some people will simply have to end their education at that age - not through choice but because they cannot afford to continue.

The irony is that the cuts come at the very time when the Government is stressing the importance of a well-educated work force and of returning to study at any age.

Current students will not be affected by the proposals - nor students studying for a degree, whose grants are protected by law.

But the proposals will mean the end of county council discretionary grants for all new students over 16 wanting to study non degree courses at school or college.

It also means the end of travel grants for college students and sixth-formers living at home and  travelling some distance to study - unless their parents are on income support.

Gary Johnson, 39, from Folkestone, could not afford to study at Kent Institute of Art and Design in Canterbury if the county council grant was not available.

"Without it, I would still have been sitting in the dole queue ironically enough with more money to spend a week than I have as a student," he said.

He receives a full grant from county council of £1,500 a year about £28 a week. He had been unemployed for a year and a half with no prospect of a job when he decided to apply for the two year general art and design course. He hopes eventually to go on to do a degree in fine art.

"Until these last few years I have worked all my life. I definitely couldn't have done the course without the grant. I cannot really afford to do it now - I am just struggling to keep going with the help of friends and my partner:'

Adult education helped Helen Armstrong, 39, find work with after 12 months without a job. But a proposed £600,000 cut in the adult education budget could mean that would-be students might not be so lucky. The savings could lead to some adult centres being closed down.

When the publishing company she helped to run went out of business, Helen was left without work or academic qualifications.

The National Vocational Qualifications she gained in business administration and accounts at the adult education centre in her home town of Sittingbourne were one of the factors that helped secure her present job - the first post she applied for after completing the course.

If the Sittingbourne centre did not exist, she would probably not have been able to gain those qualifications as she could not have afforded to travel further from home to study, she says.

"I hope the cuts do not go ahead. It is really important that people who missed the opportunity to gain qualifications at school should get that opportunity later in life," she said.