Explore Challenges
- Countryside in Crisis?
- The Energy Water Food Stress Nexus
- Unsustainable Fishing
- Keeping pace with a digital revolution
- Global health in the 21st Century
- Adapting to an urban future
- Educating for tomorrow
- Digital technology in Africa
- Persistent poverty in Britain
- Can the UK ever be sustainable?
- Plastic pollution in the oceans
- Natural disasters: how to improve?
- Not In My Back Yard
- Digital Divide in the UK?
- Importing goods, exporting drought?
- Britain’s ageing population
- Engineering our climate
- The future shape of Capitalism
- Migration: skills and the job market
- Razing the Rainforest
- London under water
- Concreting the countryside
- Future of low carbon energy
- Africa in the 21st Century
Education in Britain
Education is an essential part of any society and helps with economic, social and political growth as well as the development of society in general.
Increasingly in the UK people’s experience of formal education is no longer restricted to their years at school. There has been an expansion in further and higher education as more people in the UK continue in full-time education.
Qualifications achieved at school are increasingly supplemented by further education and jobrelated training to equip people with the skills required by a modern labour market.
Source: Office of National Statistics
Over 33,000
The number of schools and colleges in Britain
4,137,755
Number of pupils in State funded primary schools
3,262,635
Number of pupils in State funded secondary schools
576,230
Number of pupils in Independent schools
Source: Office of National Statistics - Education and training (2011)
£46.08 billion
Total funding for schools in UK government 2008/9
Source: Guardian DataBlog 2010
£6,200
Average spending per pupil in England (2009-10)
Source: BBC News
6.0% of GDP
The planned public expenditure on education as a proportion of GDP as of 2010/11. In 2000/01 this figure stood at 4.6%.
GDP is a measure of a country's economic activity, all the services and goods produced in a year. The UK's GDP is estimated at £1.3 trillion.
Source: House of Commons, 2010, quoted in Office of National Statistics Social Trends 2011 report (link to Excel file)
629
The number of academy schools that are now open England.
Academies are publicly-funded independent schools, funded directly by central government and independent of local government control. Some of these academies were set-up to replace underperforming schools and may receive additional support from personal or corporate sponsors. One example is Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney, London.
All academies must meet the National Curriculum core subject requirements and are subject to inspection by Ofsted.
Source: BBC News and Department for Education
Image: ictsan
24
The number of Free Schools opening in Britain in September 2011
17 are primary schools, 5 are secondary schools and 2 are all-age schools
281
The number of applications revieved by the Department for Education to establish Free Schools 2012/13 academic year
Source: Department for Education (DfE)
Doubled
UK public expenditure on education and training has doubled in real terms over the last 24 years, from £43 billion in 1987/88 to a planned spend of £87 billion in 2010/11
Source: Office of National Statistics Social Trends Study 2011
More on this challenge
An interview with Salmon Khan »
The founder and faculty of the Khan Academy, a not-for-profit organization with the mission of providing a free world-class education to anyone, anywhere online.
Introduction to globalisation »
Learn about the process that is bringing the world closer through better world-wide communication, transport and trade links.
Britain's ageing population »
Today, for the first time in history, Britain’s over-65s now outnumber people under the age of 16.
