'Additional pupils will not increase costs'

Education, Sport and Culture has announced it wants to slash the colleges' grant by £3.5m. to under £1m., but it has faced criticism, including from Deputy Trott who branded the plan 'utter madness' and said it was in our best interests socially, financially and educationally to ensure the colleges prosper, pointing out it cost £11,500 per child per year to educate someone at one of the high schools.

That figure was contained in PwC's benchmarking review of Education, he said.

On his Facebook page, Deputy Inder put forward 'some further factual statements regarding the cost of educating a pupil in our States' secondary schools'.

He said the review put the direct cost of a pupil at one of the four States secondary schools, including Grammar, at £7,500, including central costs this then rises to £8,800.

'The figure quoted by Deputy Trott of £11,500 per pupil consists of the average revenue cost per pupil of £8,800 plus 'a crude estimate' of the capital cost per pupil. PwC say this estimated capital cost is based on the average capital expenditure, including financing costs, that was incurred by the States in respect of St Sampson's High and Les Beaucamps High schools assuming a 50-year school life,' said Deputy Inder.

'Adding an additional student into one of our secondary schools does not increase our costs by £11,500 nor does it increase our costs by £8,800 per pupil. Our costs do not increase at all – we simply become more efficient as we have the same overall cost of running our schools but divided between one more student.'

He added that a certain number of additional students could be accommodated at each of our secondary schools without attracting additional cost – this was only incurred when additional staff or facilities need to be provided.