Three quarters of school and college leaders do not receive enough funding to meet the essential needs of the education they provide, according to a recent survey.

This is one of the headlines from research conducted by the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) which highlights the effects of financial pressures on education.

65% of respondents have had to cut the number of courses on offer over the past 12 months and a similar number have had to increase class sizes, while 69% have had to cut resources such as IT equipment or books.

Other actions taken include redundancies, non-replacement of teachers who have left, and reducing the number of senior leadership posts. 

89% said they are experiencing difficulties in recruiting teachers, with maths, English and science experiencing the most recruitment difficulties.  73% ask teachers to take subjects in which they are not specialists.

The ASCL survey was conducted in January and received 885 responses. The majority of respondents were from secondary schools, both academy and maintained.