The Manx Government spends more per school pupil than England.

Education Minister Graham Cregeen confirmed that the average spend per pupil in the island’s primary schools is £4,800, while the figure for secondary school pupils is £6,800.

That compares with figures in the Institute of Fiscal Studies report for English schools, that shows the average comparative spend was £4,800 for primary schools and £6,300 for secondary schools.

Mr Cregeen added: ’The budget for pupils for the present academic year is set at £4,800 per primary school pupil and £7,200 per secondary school pupil.

’Comparative spend for this academic year in England is reported to be £4,600 and £6,000 respectively.’

He warned: ’It should be noted that the figures reported for England give no specific details of the breakdown in costs, hence they may provide an indication of comparative spending but not a like for like comparison.’

The minister was responding to a written Tynwald question from Daphne Caine (Garff).

She also wanted to know what ’social factors’ were considered when allocating a school budget and how they were calculated on a ’pupil-by-pupil basis’.

Mr Cregeen said: ’The department applies the number of pupils receiving free school meals as the main social factor in allocating school budgets.

’Within the budget calculation a weighting is applied to all schools when the number of free school meals supplied exceeds the average percentage.

’Also, within the calculation determining staffing levels in primary schools, pupil ages are taken into consideration.’

He said this enabled the department to ’ensure that areas of deprivation and lower age range demographics receive greater funding’.