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Inside Education

Steve McCormack: Why do we spend so much money on schools?

Like all public sectors, the education world is holding its breath to see where and when the spending axe will fall. The ubiquitous question: who will suffer when the funding tap – free flowing since the early Blair days – is squeezed? But I have a different question. Are we, in our blinkered British bubble, deluding ourselves in assuming that less money will necessarily mean a less effective education system? And the reverse applies equally. Does more money necessarily mean more learning?

Leading Article: Good start for fees review

Lord Mandelson has managed to secure an impressive line-up for his review of university funding, which is expected to recommended that top-up fees be increased. Lord Browne, who spent his life in BP, rising from lowly graduate recruit to CEO, is widely admired for his expertise and will be ably supported, among others, by Sir Michael Barber, the former head of Tony Blair's delivery unit, the economist Diane Coyle, formerly of this newspaper, and Professor David Eastwood, Vice-Chancellor of Birmingham University and one of the cleverest minds in higher education. Moreover he has managed to keep the NUS happy by including a young person, Ranjay Naik, who used be on the English Secondary Students Association.

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