Northern Ireland grammar schools' body warns of impact of looming budget cuts

This follows a warning from teaching unions that the budget put forward by Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris includes a financial cut of £100 million for the Education Authority.

The Governing Bodies Association, the representative body for 50 voluntary grammar schools in Northern Ireland, is now calling for action to address what a spokesperson described as the "education funding crisis".

In a statement, the organisation said: "Schools have faced real-term cuts to their budgets for over a decade and are struggling with rising energy bills, increasing staff costs and record-breaking inflation rates."

The grammar schools' body has warned that "remaining within budget while providing a good standard of education is becoming a financial impossibility for many schools".

The chair of the association, Jacqueline Weir, said: “Yearly cuts, rising costs and the recently announced reduction have compounded the education funding crisis and brought schools to breaking point. The alarming reality is that a significant number of schools are already in deficit and more will begin the next financial year in this position. Schools do not have additional resources that can be scaled back or stopped to adjust for budget cuts. They spend up to 95% of their annual budgets on teaching and support staff, meaning there is simply no room to manoeuvre.”

She continued: “If schools continue to be inadequately funded, they will be forced to cut teaching and support staff. Schools will no longer be able to offer a full breadth of subjects, classes will become unmanageably larger, and schools will suffer from a lack of support, especially for more vulnerable pupils and those with additional needs. Year on year cuts impact negatively on the life chances of our children and young people and they deserve to benefit from a quality educational experience.

“We would urge all Northern Ireland political stakeholders to recognise the grave funding situation in our schools and seek to discuss a way forward before the education system becomes wholly unsustainable.”

The News Letter has approached the Department of Education at Stormont for comment.