The government has pledged to provide every region in England with funding for a specialist maths school.
Rishi Sunak’s budget stated £7m would be made available to open 11 specialist maths schools for 16- to 19-year-olds. He also announced an extra £120m a year to boost arts and physical education in schools.
Under the plans first announced in the Conservative manifesto, secondary schools will receive £90m a year to invest in art programmes and extracurricular activities, with another £29m a year put towards improving primary school PE teaching.
Other manifesto commitments confirmed by the chancellor included £1.5bn to upgrade further education college buildings and a new £2.5bn National Skills Fund for England to improve the technical skills of adults across the country.
Sunak said the money going into further education was building on an initiative started by his predecessor, Sajid Javid. Sunak said Javid wanted to “level up FE”, adding: “Saj, we’re getting it done.”
The budget document says the capital investment in FE colleges will ensure they “have cutting-edge facilities to train people for jobs in the industries of the future”.
It adds that the government will consult in the spring on how to spend the skills fund most effectively, before confirming details in the spending review later this year.
The budget also promised that the government would “ensure that sufficient funding is made available in 2020-21 to support an increase in the number of new high-quality apprenticeships in small and medium-sized businesses”.
The document also confirmed that eight new Institutes of Technology will be launched with funding of £120m, and £95m will be offered to providers to rollout the new T-level qualification launching in the autumn of 2021.
The government also pledged to increase investment in research spending to £22bn a year by 2024-25 – £4bn more than previously promised, with £400 million to build excellence in research institutes and universities across the country.
Dr Mary Bousted, the joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said: “The £7.1bn already promised for schools over the next three years should have been increased. It is welcome – but it falls well short of the £12.6bn needed to replace the cuts since 2015, let alone provide a world-class education for every child.
“With almost 4,000 schools in need of immediate repair, we greatly regret the government’s neglect of schools capital funding.”
David Hughes, the chief executive of the Association of Colleges, which represents further education and sixth form colleges in England, said: “Today showed a clear shift in attitude towards technical and vocational education, after a decade of neglect. Colleges will be keen to access the £1.5bn capital funding [and] help shape the new National Skills Fund.
“To create a truly transformative post-16 education system the comprehensive spending review later this year must commit to long-term investment ensuring no one is left behind.”
