Episode 180: Teachers get a 5.5% Pay increase! But where does all the other billions of pounds go in education?

Andy Psarianos

Hi, I'm Andy Psarianos.

Robin Potter

Hi, I'm Robin Potter.

Adam Gifford

Hi, I'm Adam Gifford. This is the School of School podcast.

Andy Psarianos

Welcome to the School of School Podcast.

Adam Gifford

Welcome back, it's another episode of the School of School Podcast, and it's the usual gang.

We've had a stream of amazing guests, so if you've not listened to previous podcasts or other podcasts, have a listen because we've been spoiled really with all sorts of guests that we've had through. But, not to say that the standard's any less now, because we've got Andy and Robin. How are you both today?

Robin Potter

Doing well.

Andy Psarianos

Doing good.

Robin Potter

Doing well.

Adam Gifford

Well, good. You're both well, this is excellent news. Well, someone else that I hope will be well, because it's been agreed, is the classroom teachers in the UK there. They've just got a five and a half percent award starting for this upcoming academic year, and it's been rumbling way for a long time, but it's been agreed, and the unions seem to be in agreement with it.

And I thought what was also interesting was that the government were talking about other things that they will do to make sure that teaching is an attractive profession, and they talk about getting rid of performance-related pay. Which is always hard, because if you're in a school and you're judging people, there was no set criteria as to what you were judging them against, which makes performance-related pay difficult to manage.

Andy Psarianos

For sure.

Adam Gifford

Anyway, so this is good news, but I know that we've talked off-air about this a bit, and talking about just generally funding, and the money involved, and those sorts of things. But in the first instance, I think what's the initial feelings with... Five and a half percent seems to be agreed. So that's the first thing. Getting rid of performance related pay, I wonder if that's going to be enough. Do you guys have any initial thoughts about that? And then we can start to, I wouldn't mind getting into it. There's a few bits around funding that, for me, this really raised some serious issues.

Andy Psarianos

Well, is it enough? Everyone's been hit so hard in England with inflation, and rising mortgage costs, and all that kind of stuff, and interest rates are crazy, and I think it's settled down a little bit now. But we just went through this really horrible period, a lot of people were under a tremendous amount of financial stress. Food prices, everything's gone up.

So five and a half, it's a big number in, let's say, looking back at the cost of living years and years ago, but in today's world, I don't know. I don't even think... I'm not sure they're even going to be where they were before. But, what can you do? There's not endless money. Everybody's been hit, so that sounds like a good deal to me. But, what do I know?

Robin Potter

And what do I know, either? What I do know is there's a problem in recruiting teachers, and there's a problem in keeping teachers, so it seems to me obvious that giving them a pay raise is the first thing that needs to be done as an incentive to get more teachers.

I don't know if that's the ultimate solution, I'm sure it isn't, but it would be step number one of things that needed to get done. So it sounds like a great thing. Adam, do you have a little more insight?

Adam Gifford

Well, I think it's all really reasonable, and I think you both raise a really good point in that, where does it bring them back to? Because things are getting more expensive, and so as a teacher you can move through the ranks, but it's not like you can do overtime, or it's not a fiercely competitive market in the same way that the private sphere is in that you can look for a higher paid job.

That's true of leadership, but people that turn up, the majority of teachers, classroom teachers, if things are getting harder and harder, it does make it a less and less attractive profession. So something's got to give because, we've already, on a number of podcasts, talked about the fact that teachers are leaving.

I think one of the things that came up for me, the first question that I asked, because what's happened in education before, is that there's been an announcement in terms of funding saying, "Right, there's going to be an increase for teachers and an increase in this particular area of schooling." But it comes out of an existing budget, which means that schools are even further squeezed, because there isn't any additional real money. It's basically saying, "You've got to get this out of..."

Now, this isn't happening in this one, but one of the things that jumped out to me when I was looking to see how this was being funded, so this is happened quite quickly, like an agreement...

Andy Psarianos

A can of worms.

Adam Gifford

It's a can of worms, all right. So it's an agreement that's happened reasonably quickly with the Labour government signing off on five and half percent, which, with a number of teachers, we're talking pretty big money, and the government has said it's going to be partially funded out of a 3 billion pound reallocation of money.

Now, in the last government, 3 billion pounds was earmarked to create the Advanced British Certificate, so referred to as the ABC, which brought together the A-levels and the T-levels that we get, it's like the top end of state-funded schooling before university. And I was thinking about this and thinking. 3 billion pounds. First of all, wrap your head around that that is a significant amount of money, huge amount of money.

Robin Potter

Yes, it is.

Adam Gifford

And it was bringing together two qualifications. And what I started to think about was, first of all, the importance to allocate 3 billion pounds to something, you would like to think that whatever that thing is, it's pretty flipping important, because it's not just like, "Oh, we're going to have a go at this, and we're going to throw a hundred thousand pounds at it, and just to see if it works, and if it does, then we'll invest some serious money in it."

So, the government introduced this quite late in the piece, the last government. The new government has turned around and said, "This is unnecessary. We're going to take 3 billion pounds." And I suppose that it raises the first question of should we expect that when a government is about to spend and invest that sort of money, should we expect that what they're doing takes a little bit more to decide that it's unnecessary than the first, inside the first month, almost, of a government being in place? I don't know. That's my starting point. So I'll throw that over to you, is what's the expectation when we're talking about those sums of money?

Andy Psarianos

First of all, the numbers are so huge. It's hard to even wrap your head around what $3 billion, or 3 billion pounds, looks like. That's such a big number, and that's just the tip of the iceberg in the kind of money that the government is spending on education.

So what I'd like to reframe is the question in a way is where does all the money go? Because it certainly doesn't go to the teachers. Teachers are, okay, they just got to pay rise. But teachers are not incredible, I'm talking about classroom teacher, they're not making a tonne of money. You're not a teacher because you want to get rich.

There are some educators, or some people in the education system when you get into the leadership roles, that are very well paid, there are, and some might even argue too well paid, but that's not the issue. So like you say, we're going to start something. The government says, "We're going to do this." And then they throw billions at it, it's not small numbers. And do you get value for money out of that? Really, what is it that you're spending the money and education on? Which bits does that actually bring value?

Well, we know for children, the most important thing is their experience in the classroom. That's it. Everything should lead to that, but it doesn't. So where's all this money go and who's accountable for it? Who's saying the government, "Hey, where did all that money go?" We don't have those, I don't hear those conversations.

Adam Gifford

And I think the thing is, when we look at that, just to put this in real terms, so when I was... The last post I had as the head, we had changed from one-form elementary school to two-form elementary school. It would be virtually two form for a long time, but they basically rebuilt the school. So, in effect, it was a brand new school. That project cost around 3 million pounds.

So let's just fast-forward, that was 2016. So let's fast-forward and say 5 million pounds. We'll do that. Just allow for that roughly, or go further. It doesn't matter, 6 million, that means that 3 billion, if my maths is right, and it should be, that's 500 schools. If it's 6 million a school to refit, or to make it, or to build it.

Now in the news over here, we've got crumbling classrooms that schools can't use, because the concrete fiasco, we've got supply teachers, or non-teachers, in front of classrooms. That could build, like I said, conservatively, if you were going to do just repairs, this was rebuilding, effectively, a brand new school or building a brand new school for 3 million about eight years ago. So like I said, I'm doubling that and saying, right, well, you got 500, you could do 500 of those schools. That's like 500 brand new schools.

That's the money that was going to be allocated to join together two qualifications. And this is what I find staggering. Like you're saying, Andy, where does the money go and who decides that that is a better use of money? I find it staggering. I just find, when you look into this that, again, this decision that can be made in a short amount of time and dismissed in an equally short amount of time.

And granted, to pay for the teachers, fine. Because, look, we need them. We've already talked on other podcasts about the fact that we've got classrooms that don't have teachers in front of them. We can't get them to stay, the conditions, those things. But even putting it in real terms, the 500 brand new schools for the same price, and I don't know. I'll be quiet.

Robin Potter

No, don't be quiet. This is good.

Andy Psarianos

So what are the numbers? There are quite... So how much, when you talk... The government makes these bombastic announcements about all this money they're throwing into education, and I'm assuming they're not lying. So what are the numbers? Well, if you ask the government, what does it say on the government website?

Well, I'll tell you, it says right here, because pulled it up, "Average per pupil funding in schools..." this is money that is allocated specifically per pupil in school. So the way I read that is that that's the money that should be going to the school, for each pupil, "is 7,460 pounds per year." Average classroom size, let's call it 30 to make it a nice round number, that's 223,800 pounds per classroom, per year, for school to run a classroom per year. That's how much the government says they're spending.

It also says, "Additional funding for teachers pay is..." On top of this.

Robin Potter

Oh, wow.

Andy Psarianos

Okay, so that doesn't even include the increase for teachers that we're just talking about. All right, so well, wait a minute. How much do we pay teachers? Maybe 40,000 pounds a year?

223 minus 40, equals big stack of money. Is that how much it cost to run a classroom in a school like capital expenditure, like heating and building?

Robin Potter

I don't think so.

Andy Psarianos

I don't think if I was to house 30 children, give them desks. So you can buy desks, they're going to last for 10 years, maybe five worst-case scenario, equipment for the classroom, textbooks, workbooks, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Is that 183,000 pounds? I don't think so. Is it even half of that? Nowhere near. Where the hell's the money? Where's it gone? Because the schools aren't getting it.

Robin Potter

We have yet, I think, to hear of any school that we visited that they're rolling in money, per classroom, for each student. They just don't know what to do with it.

Andy Psarianos

No, we hear quite the opposite. We hear we can't pay our heating bills. Their schools are crumbling. Maintenance is a problem, can't have someone who maintains the building to do grounds work. Teachers are coming in to take care of the garden or the green area of the school. We hear all these stories.

Adam Gifford

And also to the point, Andy, where I think all of us have read articles, and this is anecdotal, but I read one article, and I don't think it's too far wrong, or there was a survey done and there was decent numbers that replied to it, and I think on average it was something like the average teacher spends a hundred pounds per year out of their own pocket on their kids.

So it's not even as if... It's not just what you've described, it's like putting your hand in your pocket to do your job to the tune of a hundred pounds a year. A hundred pounds. That's a lot of money. You put that in someone's hand, it's a chunk of money.

Andy Psarianos

Absolutely. And so that's big numbers. So the government thinks that for the average school, it's spending more than 3 million pounds a year. No, no. Not that... It's giving the school 3 million pounds a year. That's what they say on their website. For an average school, two-form entry school, about 14 classrooms. Right? Two reception, two year, one two year, two 3 million pounds. That's big numbers.

Robin Potter

I am not quite getting the fact that the government's announcing this, it's on their website, clearly they're standing behind it. Then you talk to a school, they never got that money, or where did it go?

Andy Psarianos

They've got no idea where it went. They've got no idea.

Robin Potter

So where do they go?

Andy Psarianos

That's what the government says they're giving the schools. That's what it's saying here.

Adam Gifford

This is the thing, Robin, I think this is broken into, for me, it's broken into two parts. I think that there's the part that... Well, there's one main part, which is these projects, like that one, the combination of those certificates that was going to... 3 billion allocated to it, how many more projects like that exist where the teacher in the classroom cannot see a tangible result to something like that?

So you take out of the education budget in which it's set, it always is in the budget. You take 3 billion out of that, that's got to come from somewhere. So, that's not allocated back into schools, but that is out of the education pot. It's as simple as that, because the government has to set a budget just like everyone else. So when you take that 3 billion out, I wonder how many other projects those are existing that may not even be seen to fruition. That was earmarked for 600 million for the first two years, and I wonder how many other projects may have started and not gone on that we're talking about that money, and yet teacher pay rises, or just the environment that they work in is not being addressed. And so I just wonder.

When you say where does it go? Interestingly, the government released those funding details, because it was kind of like we're taking them off an old Tory government policy, but when you start to look into some other projects that are significant, like national projects, where that's being funded from, and the numbers attached to it is far less transparent.

So in this instance, it's one that you can say, "Well, the previous government, were going to do this, but we're doing the right thing and we're going to give this money to teachers." Which is reasonable, but with other projects, there just isn't that level of transparency. So when we ask, where does the money go? That can be really difficult to answer. So we know where the money was going to go with this project, only because it's been, this is what's going to fund the pay rise, but with these other things that happen in education, these other projects, do we know? We simply don't.

Robin Potter

We don't. So are they hoping they can just brush it under the carpet that they can get away with not explaining where this mystery money is going, or...

Andy Psarianos

It's kind of scary. You almost think when I look at these things, and I've spent a bit of time looking at it, and I keep saying, "What am I missing? What am I missing? There's something here that I don't understand, because none of this adds up." It's 11% of the public sector spending in 2023, '24 in England. 11% on education, 131 billion pounds on education. 131 billion pounds, 11%, 4% of the country's GDP. 4.2, I think it is, percent of the country's GDP is spent on education. That's really, really, really big numbers.

So 5.5% for teachers. Well, you don't want to be flippant and just hand out money for nothing, so that sounds, going back to the original question, it sounds like a reasonable thing for teachers. It's not going to bring them back to where they were, but you got to do something, because hitting this financial situation that we're in, increased pricing everywhere.

But the big thing is still this is like, okay, look, we hear these huge numbers, like this one programme, 3 billion pounds. Where is that 131 billion pounds being spent? Where is this supposed 3 million pounds that a school's supposed to get, where did that money go? Because the school didn't get it. Actually, when you talk to schools and you ask them, they seem to think that they get about, well, probably less than half of what the government says they're giving the school. So who took that money along the way?

Adam Gifford

I think the other thing that raises questions for me is that, and I know I keep banging on about this, this advanced British certificate, but if you look at this and say the intention was is that to make them equal, and so it wasn't separating out an academic versus a more pragmatic, practical qualification. So it's putting them together and just have one standard so it's all seen as in the same level.

Now, I don't know in terms of the different aspects and elements of that, this is the 3 billion one, but I then think about, well, let's pick another qualification type, or another assessment-type activity. One of our favourite topics is the year-four multiplication test.

Andy Psarianos

Hold on, let's stick with that one for a second before we get on the multiplication test. Just think of how silly this whole thing is in general, if you think about it. Because the reality is...

Okay, let's pick teachers, we're talking about teachers. So teachers have credentials, so they have to go to university, and they have to get some kind of degree from university before they can even apply to become a teacher in England. Is that correct? So if you want to enter the PGCE, it's like this is a post degree...

Adam Gifford

The only advise on that is maybe in an independent school you can do, but the vast majority, absolutely.

Andy Psarianos

So then you do a PGCE, and then you get your qualified teacher status from going through that process.

So by all measures, in my understanding of the world that that's an academic qualification. You've gone to school, post high school, secondary school, and you've done these degrees. You got something like, let's say a plumber or a bricklayer.

Robin Potter

Here we go. The analogy is coming.

Andy Psarianos

No, but who makes more money?

Robin Potter

Oh, than the teacher?

Andy Psarianos

The teacher or the plumber?

Robin Potter

Oh, plumber.

Adam Gifford

Certainly around my parts. Every trades person is just...

Robin Potter

Making a lot.

Andy Psarianos

So why do we have to spend 3 billion pounds to say that a plumber, a certificate to be a plumber is good, as good as a degree from university? The market's already decided it's more valuable. The market decides that. Run whatever stupid government programme you want. The reality is we need plumbers, we need bricklayers, and we're willing to pay them more.

So you don't need to... This is like the market decides these things. So 3 billion pounds, like, okay, am I oversimplifying this? Probably. We need people to go... But the thing is, the reality is what we need to do... You want to increase, you want to make the economy a better place. That's really the government's responsibility. Just look at the facts. The facts are if you teach kids well, especially, in particular, mathematics. If they can hit this magical criteria set by Eric Hanuszek and his pals, your GDP is going to grow. And that's it. That's all you need to know. The rest just works out. There's nothing you can do other than that in the system than educate children if you want a good economy, it's as simple as that. If you educate children really well, your economy's going to go in the right direction.

Now, that's my soap box for that one. Let's get back to the multiplication test.

Adam Gifford

Well, what I was going to say about that. So you've got something here that's a different approach to that top end age wise. So here's a year four... What I would be interested to know is how much it costs. So how much is... Because now we've got figures to join A-levels and T-levels, two qualifications that already exist, and the government at the time, I'll tell you the exact quote. It says that:

"The Advanced British Standard will ensure technical and academic education are placed on an equal footing."

Okay, great. Fantastic. Well, that's like you're saying about the market, but almost the strap line that was the motivation for something that's now not going ahead, and that's the money paying for the teachers. I would love to know. I'd love to know, and I was looking for it, because we talked off-air about a week ago about this particular topic, and I was looking to try to find out how much it costs, and how much it has cost so far to implement the year four. I can't find it.

Now, there'd be people that would be able to find it faster than me. I'm not in the habit of tracking down. All of the government spends.

Andy Psarianos

Important to know.

Adam Gifford

Really?

But it's very difficult to find. And so because then it's kind of like saying, "All right, once again, let's put this up against the real issues in education today." Are the real issues in education today, adults that can't do their times table, is that the real issue? Or is a fact that we've got parents and guardians of children who can't go to their school because the roof might fall on them, or they send their children to school and they don't have a teacher?

Which is the real issue here. If someone needs to tell me, to me it's like I would quite like my children to be taught by teachers. I would like them to go to a school that's safe. I would like to have a workforce that can build on expertise because they don't leave the profession. That, to me, is reasonably important, is making sure that my, I'm not saying the times tables aren't important. We've already spoken about this I don't know how many times, but what I would be interested to know is how much money is being put into that? And not only that, how many children?

Because I can almost guarantee you Let's say, it costs for argument's sake, 20 pounds a child, which would be minimum. You have to administer the test, you've got to pay for it. So let's just say, I reckon you could get your children to learn the times tables just by giving them 10 pounds. Give them 10 pounds each. If you say, "You'll learn this, I'll give you 10." You could save money. But that's being facetious, but it's still true. And I think that these things that are sitting there, and are the real issues in education, they're not being addressed. And then it becomes a political hot potato. Yet we're quite willing to put money into, well, we, they're an elected government, so I guess you could say we, but put them into these ideas when the real problems in education are staring us in the face.

Andy Psarianos

And why multiplication tests, why don't we have an addition test and a subtraction test and a division test? It's just dumb. It's an oversimplification of what mathematics is. We know from experience, we know this. There's really only a couple of factors. There's three factors actually that affect what you need to do in order to run an effective school. Effective school, meaning that pupils come out the other end of the school being able to perform at a high level in the things that you want them to know.

There's only three things really that you need to do. One, is you need to have teach teachers that know how to teach. There's a very simple way of putting it, but basically it's like with a subject matter specialty, it's pedagogy, it's whatever. How do you do that? Well, you have a qualification programme to start with, but there's this continuous professional development. You need to invest in your teachers. Number one factor. That's the number one factor.

The next thing you need is you need the things, the tools, that make that happen. So if teachers need stuff, what is that stuff in the classroom? They need everything from desks to books. They need that stuff, because teachers can't make it up themselves. Teachers don't spend the beginning of the year banging out desks out of soapboxes, neither should they be trying to write textbooks or literature books. It's just like, "Well, kids, we didn't have budget to buy any books from this guy called Shakespeare. So I wrote a couple of short stories over the summer for you guys."

Adam Gifford

Just this is good.

Andy Psarianos

"And that's what we're going to use for literature."

What a ludicrous idea. Buy the bloody books. What's wrong with you? I'm sorry. So the teachers need those tools. And it's true for maths as well, literature, whatever it is, just buy the stuff. What's wrong with you?

And then the third thing is you need a system. You need an environment that continuously supports this mechanism and keeps it moving together, the administration and leadership of a school. Those are the only three things. Everything else is kind of a waste of time. You need to do assessments so that you know what you're doing is working, but that's just good practise. That's part of teaching.

You need to teach the teachers how to assess, just like you need to teach them how to teach, but they also need the tools to teach. They need the tools to assess. That's the first two bits. The third bit is the environment.

The environment needs to be conducive to making things work properly. That's all you need. Everything else doesn't really make a difference. That's not to say the government shouldn't be doing research. They shouldn't be spending money on looking at what's happening in the rest of the world. They shouldn't be thinking about, "Maybe this is not equitable the way we're doing it. We need to change it."

But not in the kind of numbers, not in the, "Let's take half the money and spend it on that." Spend it on your teachers, spend it on resources, and spend it on running effective leadership schemes within teaching environments. If you get those three things right, everything else falls into place.

Robin Potter

You heard it here first, everybody. You've summed it up. What do you think, Adam?

Adam Gifford

Well, it makes me think. I just think what I'd love to know, I'd love to have all of the major projects, let's say every project over a billion pounds, for the last 10 years in education, I'd love a breakdown of any project that was earmarked for over a billion pounds, and I'd love to know a couple of things.

One, I'd love to just know what they are. That's the first thing. And then I'd love to know who's done the analysis to see how effective these things are. Because anything that can be earmarked for 3 billion, and can be created in a reasonable... And dropped by a government inside of a month, that, to me, tells me, well, it's not a very compelling argument, is it?

If something's worth 3 billion, I feel like it's almost like saying, "Well, I'm going to buy a Ferrari for the school bus. We need a school bus. I'm buying a Ferrari."

New head teacher comes in. "God, that's bloody ridiculous. You can't buy Ferrari."

"Oh, okay. Fair enough."

Andy Psarianos

But not only then, but it's not a recoverable cost. You're going to sell the Ferrari, let's just bring it to the scrapyard.

Adam Gifford

True, and this is the thing.

Andy Psarianos

Throw it away.

Adam Gifford

So I think it's seeing and looking at these things that a decision can be made that quickly, that would suggest to me it's not a compelling argument. It wouldn't have had such a significant impact on GDP in the future if we invest this money now in order to be dropped just so quickly. So I'd love to see that, I'd love to see the projects in the last 10 years that costs that money.

Andy Psarianos

So who knows? There's got to be public information.

Robin Potter

There must be.

Andy Psarianos

It's just buried. So how do we find out that we need to send Chris on a mission.

Adam Gifford

I think freedom of information acts, I think must be... The ministry must have. Jeepers, how many projects would be allocated over a billion pounds? Of course there's going to be plenty, but we are not talking thousands of projects over the last 10 years, surely. The numbers that wouldn't add up that way because the allocation directly to schools.

So, interesting stuff. I think we need to report back. I think that...

Andy Psarianos

We need to do some homework.

Okay, full disclosure here guys. None of us actually know what we're talking about, we're just general people like you who are listeners who don't really know where all the money goes.

Robin Potter

Obviously.

Andy Psarianos

We just want to know.

Robin Potter

Yes, we do.

Andy Psarianos

We would like to know. Where does it go? It's a legitimate... 131 billion, 131 billion in 2023, 2024. 131 billion. Billion. That's a B. That's a big number. How long would it take you to count to a billion?

Robin Potter

Very long time.

Andy Psarianos

Just ask yourself that question.

We'll answer it in the next podcast.

Thank you for joining us on the School of School Podcast.