793,000 empty school places, yet Conservatives propose more schools
- March 10, 2010
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Keywords:
- conservative
- empty school places
Conservative propose an additional 220,000 places for students to give parents more choice, despite official figures revealing there are at present over 793,000 empty school places in the UK
The department for Children, Schools and Families has argued that such a high level of empty places is simply a poor use of resource and gives the Labour party easy ammunition to challenge the funding of such an expansion. Opening new schools would mean additional teachers and equipment before even taking into account the cost of the build.
Schools Minister, Vernon Coaker, has argued that Conservatives have no idea how they would pay for hundreds of new 'free market schools' without making big cuts to existing schools’ budgets.
A Conservative spokesman, however, has claimed that such expense to current schools will not occur with the creation of extra capacity:
‘"There will be no extra revenue cost as we will be using a per pupil funding formula. If a parent moves from school 'x' to a new school 'y' the revenue spending is transferred. So there is no extra cost."
