Education

English private school fees 90% higher than state school spending per pupil

The gap between private school fees and state school spending per pupil has more than doubled in England over the past decade, with private fees now more than 90% higher than spending on state schools, a report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies has revealed.

A decade ago, after adjusting for inflation, the gap was just over £3,000 per pupil. But it has since doubled as private school fees have risen sharply while government spending on the state sector in England has fallen in real terms.

The IFS study included running costs and capital spending for state schools, and subtracted scholarships and bursaries given to pupils in private schools to fairly compare the two. The average private school fee (not including boarding schools) was found to be £13,700 a year, compared with £7,100 in spending on each state school pupil.

“While day-to-day state school spending per student has fallen by 9% in real-terms over the last decade, private school fees have gone up by 20%. At the same time, numbers of pupils in private schools have remained pretty much constant,” said Luke Sibieta, an IFS research fellow and author of the report.

“Longstanding concerns about inequalities between private and state school pupils, which have come into sharp focus during the pandemic, will not begin to be easily addressed while the sectors enjoy such different levels of resourcing.”

The report comes two weeks after the Labour party leadership pledged to strip independent schools of their charitable status and other tax privileges, with the extra revenue used to fund more teachers and career support in the state sector.

Kate Green, Labour’s shadow education secretary, said: “[State] school budgets have been hammered over the last decade, which is holding children back. As state school class sizes have soared and enriching activities – art, sport, music, drama – have been cut back, the gap with private schools has grown ever wider.

“Labour’s recovery plan would extend the school day for new activities for all, and by ending private schools’ tax exemptions we would invest in state schools with 6,500 new teachers, and careers advice and work experience so every child gets an excellent education that sets them up for life.”

The IFS calculations used average private day school fees of members of the Independent Schools Council, and reduced the total by the scholarships and bursaries given to approximately one in four private school pupils. The figures excluded non-association independent schools – which includes many special needs or faith-based schools – and boarding school fees, as well as endowments and donations that would substantially boost spending.

The IFS found that while state school spending had fallen in real terms over the past decade, private school fees had rises by 20%, from £11,000 to £13,700, although during the pandemic in 2020-21, private school fees dropped for the first time in more than 20 years.

The gap in spending is particularly acute in sixth forms, where state spending per pupil has plummeted in recent years. The IFS found that average fees for sixth formers in the private sector was more than £15,000 in 2019-20, more than three times higher than day-to-day state funding per pupil.

Paul Whiteman, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said the shocking fact in the report was that per-pupil spending in real termswas lower now than it had been a decade ago in state schools. Adjusted for inflation, spending per pupil had fallen from £8,000 in 2010-11 to £6,900 in 2019-20.

A spokesperson for the Department for Education said the government was increasing school funding in England so that it would be £7bn higher in 2022-23 compared with 2019-20.

Education

JAMB to release UTME resit results Wednesday

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has announced that it will on Wednesday release the results of 379,000 candidates who sat the rescheduled Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) between Friday and Monday.

JAMB rescheduled the exam following widespread outcry over mass failure during the initial UTME.

The board admitted to technical and human errors, especially in Lagos and South-East states, which significantly affected candidates’ performance.

Out of the 1.9 million candidates who sat this year’s UTME, over 1.5 million scored below 200 marks out of a possible 400, prompting widespread concern among stakeholders.

Following sustained pressure, JAMB investigated the mass failure and discovered technical and human errors in its system.

JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, last week publicly accepted responsibility for the errors, even shedding tears while announcing a resit for the affected candidates.

Speaking to The PUNCH on Monday, JAMB’s spokesperson, Dr Fabian Benjamin, confirmed that the results of the rescheduled exams would be released on Wednesday.

‘The results of the candidates who took the rescheduled exam will be released on Wednesday’, Benjamin said.

Oloyede had earlier disclosed that 379,997 candidates in Lagos and the five states of the South-East were impacted by the UTME glitches.

According to him, 206,610 candidates in 65 centres across Lagos and 173,387 in 92 centres in the South-East zone were affected.

Describing the situation as ‘sabotage’, Oloyede said the affected candidates would start receiving text notifications for the rescheduled exam starting last Thursday.

Of the 1,955,069 results processed from the original UTME, only 4,756 candidates (0.24 per cent) scored 320 and above. An additional 7,658 candidates (0.39 per cent) scored between 300 and 319, bringing the total number of top-tier scorers (300 and above) to 12,414 (0.63 per cent).

Meanwhile, 73,441 candidates (3.76 per cent) scored between 250 and 299, while 334,560 (17.11 per cent) scored between 200 and 249.

A total of 983,187 candidates (50.29 per cent) scored between 160 and 199, widely considered the minimum threshold for admission in many institutions. Another 488,197 (24.97 per cent) scored between 140 and 159, 57,419 (2.94 per cent) between 120 and 139, 3,820 (0.20 per cent) between 100 and 119, and 2,031 (0.10 per cent) scored below 100.

Over 75 per cent of all candidates scored below 200 in the exam graded over 400 marks, fueling national debate over the credibility and fairness of the testing process.

Education

ASUU threatens to sue JAMB over UTME mass failure

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) branch, has threatened to sue the Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) over massive failure recorded in the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Exam (UTME).

The Chairman of ASUU-UNN, Comrade Óyibo Eze, made the disclosure while briefing newsmen in Nsukka on Wednesday.

Oyibo said the massive failure which mostly affected candidates from the South East, was a deliberate attempt by JAMB to stop children from the zone from getting admission.

“My office has been inundated with protests, calls and visits by parents and the general public on this deliberate massive failure in 2025 JAMB examination.

“ASUU will challenge this result in High Court if JAMB fails to review the result and give candidates their merited scores.

“JAMB knows that children from South East must score higher before they can get admission whereas their counterparts in some parts of the country will use 120 JAMB score to get admission to read medicine in universities in their area.

“In the JAMB recently released result, out of 1,955,069 candidates who sat for the 2025 examination, over 1.5 million candidates scored less than 200 and majority of these are from the South East and Lagos State where many Igbo reside,” he said.

He called on governors from the South East to rise up and challenge this injustice targeted towards preventing children from the zone from gaining admission into higher institutions in the country.

“The governors in the zone should not sit and watch JAMB toy with academic future of our children.

” I am not against the board punishing those found guilty of exam malpractice but JAMB should not, because of these few candidates, fail the whole candidates in an exam centre,” he said.

The ASUU boss said that it was unbelievable and unacceptable that in the whole University Secondary School, Nsukka, no candidate that sat for the exam scored up to 200 in the UTME.

“This school has superlative students who have excelled in academics both inside and outside the school. How come all of them scored less than 200 in the exam?

“Even if JAMB discovered one or two candidates for exam malpractice, is that enough reason to fail all others who have prepared very hard for that exam,” he said.

Oyibo advised JAMB to act fast to do the needful by reviewing the result as that massive failure had become a national issue which might attract national protest if nothing urgent was done.

Education

JAMB orders review of 2025 UTME

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has ordered an immediate review of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) following a wave of public complaints alleging technical glitches, incomplete questions, and unusually low scores even as thousands of candidates have threatened to sue the examination body.

The Board, in a statement issued by its Public Communication Advisor, Fabian Benjamin, acknowledged what it described as an “unusual volume of complaints” since the release of the UTME results last Friday.

It said the development had prompted it to fast-track its annual post-examination review process, which typically takes place months after the exercise.

“We are particularly concerned about the unusual complaints originating from a few states within the federation,” Fabian said. “We are currently scrutinising these complaints in detail to identify and rectify any potential technical issues.”.

The spokesperson explained that the annual review covers three stages of the UTME cycle—registration, examination, and result release.

He added that if any faults are found in the system, JAMB would not hesitate to implement “appropriate remedial measures.

“To assist in this process, we have engaged a number of experts, including members from the Computer Professionals Association of Nigeria, Chief External Examiners, who are heads of tertiary institutions, the Educational Assessment and Research Network in Africa, measurement experts, and Vice Chancellors from various institutions.”

The exam board noted that “If it is determined that there were indeed glitches, we will implement appropriate remedial measures promptly, as we do in the case of the examinations themselves.”

JAMB’s intervention comes amid reports that thousands of candidates are preparing to file a class-action lawsuit against the Board over the alleged irregularities.

Many claim they encountered technical malfunctions and inconsistent question displays during the examination.

The controversy reached a boiling point after JAMB revealed in its viral statistical data that over 1.5 million out of the 1.9 million candidates who sat for this year’s UTME scored below 200 out of a possible 400 marks