The Baby Bust and School Closures

Why does the birthrate in the UK keep falling? Along with many other developed countries, the lack of incentive to have children is causing a multitude of problems. The latest to add to this list is a fall in demand for primary schools and a declining school population. Year on year those that require an education reduces in number by 1.3%, with some future predictions saying the education sector could suffer a decrease in students by 7.5% each year. As classes shrink and playgrounds empty. It begs the question; is it rational to keep all schools open. For Randal Cremer primary school in Hackney this has proven to be the fatal question. Randal Cremer is a school rated ‘good’ by Ofsted and whilst capable of enrolling around 400 students, it is at this point in time not even a third filled. The falling demand, largely due to the falling birth rates is cause for the school to be closed, with those students currently studying at Randal Cremer being combined with another school in the area.

State funding is determined largely on a per pupil basis with the primary operating costs remaining relatively consistent regardless of overall pupil numbers, this means that from a financial perspective, to the government, it seems irrational to keep a school with questioned viability, open, or give it the funding it needs to maintain a high quality education.

For there to be any efficient and effective governmental policy solution, the problem needs to be clear and outlined. The problem is a lack of certainty and availability of affordable housing in the UK. With average house prices being 8.3 times average annual salaries it is increasingly difficult to enter the housing market and thus feel stable enough in a home, without an imperious mortgage, to then start a family.

Therefore as a solution, I propose the government using brown field sites in London to build low cost housing for which they sell, with an offer of 5% deposit for a mortgage, like is currently the case until 2025, to couples under 35. This is acts as an incentive for young couples to move to London to start a family and repopulate the declining numbers in local primary schools. With more pupil numbers comes more funding and consequently a higher quality of education. It has been proven that the slightly smaller class size of 20 or 25 is not significantly better for the child’s education and therefore increasing the class sizes to 30, where they were in the baby boom of the late 2000’s, is not a worry in which the government would be concerned about.

By offering this housing below market rate, for this particular demographic, we hope that it takes less time to save for a house. The young couples will feel that without the heavy burden of an inflated mortgage and the prospect of having to pay it down for the next 20 years, they are more likely to start a family. I don’t think that social perspectives on children have changed that much since the early 2000’s, when the birth rate was higher, even if it is more common for each partner to be in the workforce. I believe that housing security is the main problem which causes falling birth rates and consequently less enrolled primary schools, and if we were to address that with a policy that made it easier and more attractive to purchase housing, many more people would be inclined to start a family and the birth rate would increase, therefore leading to more funding into the education sector and a higher quality of education.

For this policy to be most effective, it should be aimed to be introduced in London and major cities including Birmingham and Manchester. With many large brownfield sites, originally used for industry, there is an abundance of potential to gentrify these areas whilst also boosting the economy through the government expenditure on construction. In accordance to Keynesian economics. In order to increase growth, it is important to spend money to then take advantage of the natural multiplier effect. This investment will boost the local economy and provide benefits to the existing area, thus not disproportionately benefitting those who have purchased the housing and therefore not increasing inequality.

London, Manchester and Birmingham have high job prosperity for skilled individuals, with large finance and service sectors. It is, if it were cheaper, an ideal location for many young couples to live but with the hurdle of increasing housing prices, it becomes harder by the day to enter the housing market and start a career and family, with the added benefit of city life. This policy aims to target a falling birth rate to keep the standard of education high with the added, intended, consequence of increasing quantity and quality of the labour market.