UK faces budget strain with more pupils

Britain is facing increasing budgetary pressures and concerns over “supersize” schools amid warnings by local government authorities about the rise in primary school population across the country.

The UK’s Local Government Association (LGA) said that councils have had to fill a £1-billion shortfall in funding for school places, the state-funded BBC reported Wednesday.

According to the report, primary schools in the country have had to accommodate several years of rising numbers of pupils, with many schools having had to add temporary classrooms and build extensions.

Figures released earlier this year indicated that there are 77 primary schools that now hold more than 800 pupils.

This is while the LGA says that councils are feeling the financial pressure, having to divert funds from other parts of their school budgets.

Across England, councils say they have to spend £1 billion on providing extra places, using money that had been intended for building projects or maintenance.

Councils provided an extra 90,000 places last year, says the LGA, but it adds that another 130,000 will be needed in the next three years, as the birth rate in the UK continues to climb.

The pressure on space has meant that one school has had to build its playground on a roof, says the LGA.

An LGA survey, based on responses from over half of councils, found that three out of four local authorities claim not to have received sufficient funding from the central government for extra places, and that 38% of councils have had to borrow money.

The Labor Party’s shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt has accused British Prime Minister David Cameron of “diverting resources away from areas in desperate need of more primary school places in favour of pursuing his pet project of expensive free schools in areas where there is no shortage of places.”

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