Do half of schools ban mobile phones?
- Published
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan has been promoting new government guidance to prohibit mobile phone use during the school day.
During a round of broadcast interviews, Ms Keegan made claims about phone bans and school funding levels.
Do half of schools ban mobile phones?
On BBC Breakfast, it was put to Ms Keegan that many schools had already banned mobile phones.
Ms Keegan replied: "We think it's happening in about half of our schools."
She added that bans are not all the same, with some allowing "use of phones during break times or during lunchtimes - some have an outright ban".
In a later BBC Radio 4 exchange, Ms Keegan was challenged on her claim. She said: "The latest data, which is a bit out of date, show that just under half had restricted it and just over half had not."
We asked the Department for Education for the data Ms Keegan was referring to.
It pointed us to a government survey from winter 2019, external.
The survey suggested that 49% of secondary schools in England had adopted strict no-use policies and 48% permitted regulated use.
Only 16% of them banned phones on the premises altogether.
However, more recent research suggests the number is much higher.
According to the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment's (Pisa) survey, external, 71.8% of schools in England said the use of mobile phones was "not permitted on school premises".
Is school funding at a record high?
On BBC Breakfast, Ms Keegan also said: "We are funding our schools at the highest in our history, at £60bn a year."
"No matter which way you look at it - real terms, per pupil, including inflation - that's the highest we've funded our schools."
She was talking about schools in England - Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland manage their own education systems.
But the figure of £60bn has not been achieved yet. It is what the government plans to spend next year, in the year ending 31 March 2025.
The total funding in the previous year, 2022-23, was £53.4bn and this is predicted to rise to £57.7bn in 2023-24 and £59.5bn in 2024-25, according to the government's figures, external.
The independent think-tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), confirms, external that that level of spending in the year 2024-25 (year ending 31 March 2025) - if delivered - would be the highest even if adjusted for rising prices and per pupil.
It would take school spending per pupil to 3% more than its previous high-point in 2009-10 and reverse considerable falls between 2010 and 2020, which the IFS said represented "the largest and most sustained cut in school spending per pupil in England in at least 40 years, and probably a lot longer".
