THE seriousness of the shortage of government funding of Devon schools has been highlighted by the principal of Queen Elizabeth's Community College.

QECC principal for the past nine years, Richard Newton Chance, has written to parents in the latest issue of "The QE News" about the problems it will cause the college in the coming year.

He is scathing of the government under-funding of Devon schools and calls on parents and carers to add their names to Devon's Fairer Funding Campaign by signing up to a website.

Mr Newton-Chance wrote: "Since our last newsletter it has become clear that unfortunately we are not going to be able to balance the budget next year (April 2010 to April 2011).

"We are therefore having to go through a whole staff re-structure, which is obviously difficult and stressful for everyone concerned.

"This is all the more galling as we have done everything we can to manage our budget prudently over the years, being one of the first schools in Devon to have met the Financial Management Standards for Schools.

"We are not profligate, or inefficient.

"In common with a lot of other schools in Devon, we are just not funded sufficiently to cover our costs.

"Although the government has undoubtedly put a lot of money into schools, changes in legislation have meant we have had to spend all this and more to meet the new demands.

"As I wrote last time, you can help us for the future by signing up to support Devon's Fairer Funding Campaign at: http://www.fairerfundingfordevonschools.org.uk">www.fairerfundingfordevonschools.org.uk .

"Whatever we have to do over the next few months, I can re-assure you that we are very clear that our core business is teaching and learning and that we will preserve the quality of these at all cost."

The College employs around 270 people, so any reduction in staffing as the largest employer in the Town obviously will have an affect on the local economy as well as the school.

Despite all this, development at QE has not stopped. QECC's Upper School quad recently underwent a transformation with new blocks of temporary classrooms put in place by a crane.

The plan is that they are in place and officially handed over to the college after the February half-term break for the college to furnish and use for the Humanities Department

Although temporary, these will be state of the art classrooms and represent a significant boost to teaching facilities. Devon County Council have provided the new block as a result of the growth in the Sixth Form at the College, which was rated "outstanding" by OFSTED last year.

A new basketball court above the Tennis Courts is also a part of the scheme.