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Theresa May was heckled by the studio audience during tonight's TV leaders' debate as she attempted to defend brutal school funding cuts.

One audience member shouted "you've clearly failed" as the Prime Minister tried to justify the savage cuts in classrooms across the country.

The Prime Minister was questioned about funding per pupil in schools during the Battle for Number 10 Q&A programme live on Channel 4 and Sky News .

Sky News political editor Faisal Islam challenged Mrs May: "In real terms per pupil, (funding is) going down."

She was jeered after replying to say: "Nobody can guarantee the real terms per-pupil funding increase. The Labour Party manifesto, we know the figures don't add up."

(Image: Sky News)

Mrs May continued after laughter and heckles had died down: "What we need to do is ensure we will put these record levels of funding into schools.

"We need to ensure we get that better spread of funding in terms of the fair funding formula."

A new funding formula announced in December will see nearly a third of schools serving more than 2million pupils will face cuts .

(Image: Sky News)

Education Secretary Justine Greening said the reforms - designed to spread money more evenly between schools - would see 10,000 schools in England get extra money from 2018/19.

But the changes will also result in 31% - around 9,000 - of schools hit with budget cuts of up to 3% a year.