Head's cash concern (From Penarth Times)

Head's cash concern

THE headmaster of a Penarth Secondary School has said the education of schoolchildren in the Vale of Glamorgan is suffering because 400 a year less is spent on each Vale pupil, compared with English counterparts.

Brian Lightman, headmaster of St Cyres Comprehen-sive School, said: "The average spending on a pupil's education in Wales is 150 less than in England.

"In the Vale, we are especially disadvantaged because we already receive 250 per pupil less than the Welsh average. That's an overall difference of 400. If our school received the same funding as an average school in England that would add up to an extra 625,000 to spend each year.

"That amount of money would allow us to equip every classroom with state-of-the-art audio visual equipment.

£625,000 would be enough to employ ten extra staff and ten additional teaching assistants with more than 100,000 for building maintenance.

"At the moment, we receive only 50,000 a year to spend on maintaining our site.

"Schools in the Vale are doing exceptionally well in spite of the low funding. In a sense, doing so well is perhaps our Achilles heel."

Mr Lightman is a member of the National Funding Committee of the Secondary Heads Association (UK).

Some 3,147 was spent per pupil in the Vale of Glamor-gan in 2004/2005, which means that only one other authority in Wales received less to spend on education.

The average expenditure per pupil in Wales was 3,397.

Brian Rowlands, SHA Cymru General Secretary, said: "The findings show that Welsh schools lose between 150 and 200 per pupil. For the typical school with 1,000 pupils, this is a shortfall of 150,000 and 200,000 a year.

"The Welsh Assembly Government can no longer ignore our concerns."

A spokesman for the Welsh Assembly Government said: "The key issue about funding for schools in Wales is not comparison with England, but whether schools in Wales have the resources they need to do the job.

"That involves decisions by the Assembly on local government funding in the first instance and then by local authorities in light of local circumstances.