LONDON, Sep 3 — Rachael Warwick, who oversees three schools in southeast England, has had to sign a new contract to heat and light their buildings at tariffs that she describes as “eye-watering”.
Publicly funded schools in England are sounding the alarm as soaring energy prices hit their already tightly constrained budgets. This comes as schools are expanding activities after pandemic curbs. England’s commissioner for children, Rachel De Souza, vowed “schools must absolutely not close” in an interview withRishi Sunak, Britain’s former Chancellor of the Exchequer and Britain’s Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, the final two contenders to become the country's next Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative party, stand together on stage during the final Conservative Party Hustings event at Wembley Arena, in London, on August 31, 2022.
“I think Liz Truss has been quite clear about what her priorities are — a lot of stuff about tax cuts — but there hasn’t been any mention of bailing out public sector bodies,” said John Dickens, editor of the Schools Week newspaper. File photo of a shopper wearing a face mask in Old Bond Street, amid the coronavirus disease outbreak, in London, Britain, July 18, 2020. — Reuters picFrom next month, Gosling’s small school of several hundred pupils will have to switch to a new energy contract at current market prices.“If the government doesn’t step in to help, many schools are predicting that they will be plunged into deficit this year,” NAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman said.