Would you want your child or any child to grow up disadvantaged? Would you want the education of your child to be determined by your postcode? Most repulse at the idea their son or daughter could be a victim of state backed inequality but many more have to face this reality.

Education varies from area to area, school to school, pupil to pupil. Funding is unequal and not enough. Schools are suffering, but spare a thought for the pupils whose futures could be irreparably damaged, all prospects of excelling in what they want to do evaporate because the government continue to steal every last penny from those who can’t afford it like an antithetical Robin Hood. This is a problem that faces every school in the country. Successive governments proudly declare that schools have seen a 50% increase in funding since 2000, however, national funding will have been cut by 8% from 2015 to 2020 with 66,000 more pupils and 5,000 less teachers. The £43.5bn being drip fed to schools by 2020 fails to rectify the glaring problems that remain.

Locally, 83% of schools have endured cuts with an £8.9 million loss between 2015 and 2020. This cost has been become the burden of the young with West Sussex schools witnessing a £90 average loss per pupil. Some schools receive 0.2% (£10 per pupil) while others in the county received 11% of funding, highlighting the great disparity between the provision of education locally. This ignores the regional differences that show London receiving 40% (£200 million more). This begs the question, was it really a surprise that 1000 headteachers, 250 from West Sussex, marched on London in October?

A local headteacher thinks otherwise. Mr Wergan, headteacher at Steyning Grammar school, was one of the many head teachers taking part in the march and supports the view that schools are underfunded. Recently, in the local area alone, 100,000 signed a petition to change the current funding shortfalls and remedy a system that is buckling under its own weight.

Despite the, not so apparent, end to austerity and the supposedly more charitable 2018 budget the government could only stretch to a meager £400 million for “little extras” which is the equivalent to the moon in the universe and about as useful as stairs in a bungalow. £20 million per year in West Sussex alone is needed to bridge the funding gap, yet there has not been any reassurances from local MPs that funding will ever arrive. People cannot help thinking that education is plummeting down the government’s list of priorities faster than children’s hopes and dreams. Equality of opportunity for every child will continue to be overlooked, nationally and locally, until funding changes. For the time being the outlook appears bleak.