Secondary schools in Kent are facing an unexpected shortfall of £3.4million that could lead to a serious funding crisis for sixth forms and possible cuts to courses.

Larger secondary schools are facing cuts of up to £80,000 from their budgets for their sixth forms because of a blunder by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), the quango responsible for allocating money for post-16 education.

Further education colleges in the county have also been hit after the LSC under-estimated the number of students who had applied to sixth forms, colleges and for places on vocational training courses. It is not clear how much they stand to lose but if extra money is not found, students could be turned away from courses they have enrolled for.

The average loss to KCC’s 86 schools that have sixth forms is £40,000, but for larger sixth forms, the shortfall could be much greater.

Shocked county education chiefs say they were told by the LSC there would be no change between what was first promised for its schools and what it has ended up with.

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Initially, the authority expected its schools to get £80.7million but will now get £77.3million.

Cllr Mark Dance (Con), KCC’s cabinet member for education, said: "In Kent, we and our schools were told there would be little or no change between the provisional and final budgets. Yet, in the space of the four weeks, the allocations were cut by £3.4million between those two budgets."

He warned if the shortfall was not addressed, there could be potentially serious implications.

"We are working closely with the local LSC and are lobbying Government to get a quick decision to rectify this problem. We need to know sooner rather than later what will happen so we can make sure schools can meet the expectations and demands of Kent students. Now is the time we should be investing in training our students for real jobs in the world of 21st century skills, not cutting back," he said.

One school, which did not wish to be identified, has written to KCC to say it was told at the beginning of March its budget would be £1.57million for its students but, four weeks later, was notified its allocation would be £1.49million.

A letter seen by the KM Group reveals the school in question has told the education authority that it will get an average of £1,751 for each sixth form student, compared to £4,875 last year.

Student applications for post-16 courses have risen because more teenagers are looking to stay on in full-time education as the recession hits jobs.

Schools minister Jim Knight said the squeeze arose because "we are now seeing an even greater surge in demand for places than we have budgeted for".