Wednesday, May 11, 2005

EducationGuardian.co.uk | News crumb | Fall in private pupils as fees rise

Fall in private pupils as fees rise

Well, here is an item for us Aspiring Heads to make us sit up & take notice! The article outlines a fall in pupil numbers at independent schools. The drop is small (o.6%), follows 9 years growth and relates, in the main, to pupils originating from outside the EU. However, I feel the most salient point is this:


"The ISC said the overall dip was linked to a fall in children in the population at large, and pointed out that state schools saw a greater drop."

For future managers of an organisation that has to make both educational and business sense, this would seem to be our biggest challenge. Apart from needing to ensure value in our provision when we are having to continually ask parents to dig deeper, the demographic question is clear: where are the children going to come from?

You might want to check out some stats from National Statistics Online.

In fact, a quick check through the data suggests a fall from 14% to 11.9% over the next 20 years!

What do you feel as the way forward in the next 10 years? Have you any solutions?

Drop your comments via the link below.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Declining numbers due to demographic reasons, are a problem all schools seem to be facing.