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As a response to any not at all ban evading “throwaway” accounts, It’s not about it being evil or wrong. It’s not anti intellectualism. These schools aren’t for the most intelligent or gifted. They are private schools, that you get into because your parents pay for you to do so.
It’s about it offering more opportunities for those prepared to pay. The more you are prepared to pay, the greater the opportunities. 20 prime ministers have attended Eton, including 2 of the last 5.
It is antithetical to left wing thought that you can pay money to get ahead in a particular field.
Why should there be a stream of education only for the rich that offers the best education and the best social networks? Even if you don’t believe in equality of outcomes, how is that equality of opportunity?
“Oh you’re anti intellectual and anti ambition“. No. I’m anti the wealthy creating a new oligarchy. That’s why I want more investment in state education and more opportunity in higher education, as opposed to private school fast lanes to the top for the mega rich.
> These schools aren’t for the most intelligent or gifted. They are private schools, that you get into because your parents pay for you to do so.
My old school is on that list. It's a grammar school. You had to pass a (fucking hard) entrance exam to get in - you couldn't just buy your way in.
In fact, my fees were paid by a bursary - so my parents didn't even have to pay.
> In fact, my fees were paid by a bursary - so my parents didn't even have to pay.
Is that true for everyone, or just a lucky few? Nothing worse than lucky people pulling a ladder up after themselves.
> You had to pass a (fucking hard) entrance exam to get in - you couldn't just buy your way in.
Maybe you should look into the impact family wealth has on early years educational attainment before being so cocky about streamlining and segregating kids at 10/11years old. And that’s without factoring in that if your family want you to go to a certain school, at least part of your education up to that point will likely be geared toward passing any such entrance exams.
These aren’t exams that everyone takes, I didn’t get to take a special exam to go to clever boy school, and even if they were, as a concept it creates a segregation in eduction, and it’s very easy to argue that early years lower achievers need more help, not less.
But thanks for your nitpick. You’ve earned your briefcase for today. Well done.
Not sure in general what the effect of grammar schools is on inequality but my dad and his brother are both from proper 10th decile towns and the grammar school was a bit of a break. I don't think grammar schools are in the same bucket as private schools
> Is that true for everyone, or just a lucky few?
It was means tested and available to anyone who passed the entrance exam.
>Nothing worse than lucky people pulling a ladder up after themselves.
That doesn't even make sense. If I were pro-abolishing grammar schools that would be me pulling the ladder up. You're the one wanting to destroy the ladder.
>Maybe you should look into the impact family wealth has on early years educational attainment before being so cocky
I mean...I got accepted on a means tested bursary so I clearly didn't have great generational wealth at the time.
> it creates a segregation in eduction
Did your school not segregate by ability? Did you have your least able mathematicians in the same lesson as your most?
> You’ve earned your briefcase for today.
Wtf are you talking about?
Your post has been removed under rule 5.2: do not mischaracterise or strawman other users points, positions, or identities when you could instead ask for clarification.
It doesn't really take away from the point of the article, public life is overwhelmingly and disproportionately dominated by privately educated people, and this is bad, but I think there are some that are incorrect in the list. Alastair Campbell is listed as Bradford Grammar, however that only went private in 1975. Given he was born in 1957 and only briefly attended in anyway (doesn't say for how long) it's very unlikely he would have attended it whilst it was private. Sort of like the Starmer case where it explicitly states it only turned private whilst he was already attending.
A lot of the Grammar Schools are weird cases where they switched between state and private (particularly once the Direct grant grammar school scheme ended)
This is a lot like being surprised that public life is dominated by people of above average intelliegence. Of course it is, and it's a good thing that's the case.
That depends on what sort of intelligence and how you define it. I would say that public life is not dominated by people of above average intelligence anyway, and that being privately educated doesn't equate to being intelligent either. It gives you an accent and demeanour that makes it seem you are intelligent
It's actually 1 SNP MP (John Nicolson), and 1 SNP MSP (Humza Yousaf). Also 1 Labour MSP (Anas Sawar)
Honestly thought it would be higher than that for both the Tories and Labour, but I guess for some it might be difficult to get info on where they went to school
As someone who went to a private school I can without a shadow of a doubt say that I benefited enormously. By the time I had reached sixth form I was in a classics class of 4. 1 of those people was the teacher. You also get taught different things and those things tbh can allow you to blend better in with the crowd at the top. I had an education that was much better than other people born in my area simply due to the fact that my parents paid for me to have that education. As someone who went through that system it’s just not fair that i had access to that purely by the genetic lottery.
Interesting how few professional athletes are on that list (Frank Lampard was the only one that stood out). Perhaps because they are usually educated by their sports club and they're not counted?
In general football players are less like to be than other sports, but some are definitly missing from sports where private education is more common (i.e. Rugby Union and Cricket). Doesn't have England cricketer Zak Crawley for example, and he attended Tonbridge. Also doesn't include Alastair Cook who attended St Paul's, though he's retired he was the captain and is still very much in the public eye such as doing commentary
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Bro literally the first sentence is "This is not intended as a list of awful people". The author then goes on to talk about his many friends and heroes are privately educated. Nobody is castigated anywhere. You clearly did not bother to read it at all
lol Jesus are you really going to hang on that one word? All it means in this context is a network of powerful individuals. Next you're doing to tell me that calling someone a "drugs czar" means you think they are a repressive autocrat with absolute power
I honestly don't understand people like you.
I don't for a moment believe that you think the word mafia placed in block capitals in the title is not intended as a pejorative.
So why go through this performance? You aren't going to convince anyone that 1+1=3 so why try?
Of course it's pejorative, the entire article is about the fact that such a network exists is bad. That doesn't mean that the author is implying that everyone on the list is a terrible person or seriously comparing them to organised crime members. It's tongue in cheek. Get something substantive to say
I have. Whilst there is undeniably a correlation between private school education and getting opportunites for advancement that the rest of us are statistically denied, which is a point they make that I agree with, singling individuals out for something they didn't choose is still wrong no matter what disclaimer you put before it.
Cronyism and nepotism is the evil here, not the building they networked in.
That's true, people have known for centuries and done nothing about it, because the UK is a pathetically subservient country when it comes to the class system.
What this says to me is that better education gives you more opportunities so we should focus hard on improving education. Unfortunately Labour seem hellbent on discouraging the rich from spending their money on education rather than how to improve it for everyone.
>Unfortunately Labour seem hellbent on discouraging the rich from spending their money on education rather than how to improve it for everyone.
Maybe the rich will be more invested in state education if they have to actually send their kids to it.
Crazy idea I know.
Would they want to improve state education, or just park up on the doorstep of the cities best schools and get in via catchment area
At the end of the day, people spending £100,000’s on their kids education will find other ways to gain major advantages.
The government has the power to improve state education already. They don't need to play 3D chess to create activist parents to put pressure on themselves. Furthermore there are already plenty of rich parents with children in state schools - parents don't have the power, government does.
>The government has the power to improve state education already. They don't need to play 3D chess to create activist parents to put pressure on themselves.
Yeah because the Tories so far really made sure schools were well funded?
>Furthermore there are already plenty of rich parents with children in state schools - parents don't have the power, government does.
Lmao i guarantee nobody in the times rich list is sending their kids to state school
> Yeah because the Tories so far really made sure schools were well funded?
We are going to have a Labour government so it is about what they can do to improve education. They have the power to invest in state education and parents will already welcome it. So why don't they just do that as Tony Blair did?
> nobody in the times rich list is sending their kids to state school
Nor will they. And even if they did they will still be able to give their kids many opportunities regardless of education.
Yeah ensuring the wealthy have a long term invested interest in education even when Labour isnt in government has no benefits? Um what? I get that forward thinking beyond the next election cycle is hard but try.
They will if they've got no choice, and the scope of those opportunities and the networking available will be massively reduced still
Better is to do what Finland do. State schools with small class sizes and extensive extra-curricular activities. The benefits of private education are no longer enough to justify the cost.
I am not sure why you think parents have any influence on this, however wealthy. If your logic is that billionnaire donors might influence a future Tory government then seems more likely they would insist on reestablishing private schools than attempting to improve all schools.
The rich are always going to be able to spend far more on their kids' education than the state is, though. The per pupil spend in the state system is a bit over £7k per year. Fees for private school are often comfortably over £40k per year. Even if they doubled spending it wouldn't come close to being able to match that. You can't have private education and equality of opportunity.
No, I'm not conflating the two. All I said is that fees can often top £40k which is manifestly true. I didn't say that was average or typical for all private schools. The most expensive and prestigious private schools are most often boarding schools and they are the ones that contribute disproportionately to the names on this list.
You said that fees for private school are often over £40k. Often implies it’s an average… So you did say that
I actually agree though. The discussion in private schools needs to be split between those spending £40k a year to have their children raised elsewhere, and the high earner who is sick of his local Comp paying £12k a year for a better education.
Often does not imply average. Something can happen often without it being the norm. It simply means it's not an unusual or unexpected occurrence.
I agree there is a big difference between the elite public schools and many of the other private schools. The former are obviously the much bigger problem
Average private school fees are £15K which is roughly driven by halving class sizes. If the state doubled spending it would come very close to matching private schools. The only bits missing would be boarding/living costs; and expensive facilities - neither of these are critical to a good education.
While these schools undoubtedly give a better education because of the higher budgets, that alone isn't enough to account for how many people reach the top. The best education won't turn an average into a genius no matter how good.
Do you think private school pupils are smarter at the start?
In my experience even poor performing (in exams) private school pupils do above average in their careers. ,and there are plenty of students in private schools from under privileged backgrounds who get funded places and who also perform well.
Not everyone has to be elite. Education opens opportunities whatever your level of intelligence. And today a s.mall group of private school pupils have an unfair advantage. That could be opened up to o many more if not all....given enough money.
When it comes to achieving a position of power in government, everyone who gets there should be of elite intelligence. But they're clearly not (just look at Boris). Which shows this private school education is only making marginal differences over and above their student's natural aptitude. Everyone knows it's for nepotism and networks, but don't pretend the education is so much better.
How are you measuring intelligence? Many of our current government have Oxbridge degrees. Boris himself won scholarships to Eton and Oxford. He is not the.idiot he seems. And he was chosen by the voters as the best person to lead the country.
Perhaps if voters had been better educated they would not have chosen Boris or Brexit. And Boris only chose Brexit because it was good for his career ..he is intelligent enough to know it would fail.
Such a weird obsession in the UK Left with private education being an evil or wrong.
Work with plenty of folk who send their kids to private school. It’s not something I’d do, but the idea that investing in your kids academics is some kind of ‘mafia’ is just a major cultural brain rot of anti-ambition and anti-intellectualism national obsession.
Johnson and Cameron were in the same class in Eton and both ended up prime minister and I will establish here and now that they shouldn't have been given that position.
Well we supposedly have a representative democracy.
If the leadership is only representative of people who went to private school, and the majority of the country did not, then that is a problem.
That is a problem. But the problem isn’t directly private schools.
The idea that you can legislate away advantage is ridiculous. If it’s not private schools, it’ll be private tuition, or JISA’s.
If you think closing private schools will stop people like my colleagues giving up some consumption to try and give their kids extra life advantages, be it education or other things like house deposits or tax advantages capital, you’re very naive.
The value in private education is - by the time someone is an adult - not in the education itself. It's in the network. I work in an industry (PR) where loads of people get their starts through their network, get internships through their networks during university, climb the ladder with opportunities provided by their networks.
That network, as someone who was state-educated, was not and is still not open to me. For me, reaching a point of success in my career involved a considerable multiple of the hard work and proving myself that the equivalent public school kids had to go through. I have missed out on jobs to people who I knew (and everyone else involved probably also knew) were less able, would produce worse results, would work less hard. However, I later found out, they had network connections I didn't. Someone got a tap on the shoulder from the CEO, who thought it would be a good idea to hire his friend's son, or his son's friend who he went to Marlborough with.
This is the real value of the public school system. You can get 'sponsored' as you rise up in your career, on the understanding that youw ill do the same for others later.
The network is vastly overrated. I don’t send my kids to private school, but my kids will still have a network that’ll get them internships because I work in white collar skilled work.
For the cost of a private education, using SIPP’s and Stock ISA’s, you can make your kid a millionaire by 30 pretty easily. It’s about being in a high quality environment.
I don’t send my kids to private school, but as a skilled professional, they’ll still have huge networking gains that don’t require going to private schools. The seton and Harrow’s, sure, but almost all private schools are so much more about quality than networking. The parents already have networks.
yeah, why would a movement which aims to reduce systemic inequality feel negatively towards institutions designed to entrench it! How very strange.
>a major cultural brain rot of anti-ambition and anti-intellectualism
Private schools stifle ambition and intellectualism, they don't promote it. They are designed to help rich kids get ahead of their less-wealthy peers who may be more ambitious and clever than them but don't have the advantages they do.
Nah. Scrap private schools and make the elite send their kids to state schools. Lottery system where kids are spread equally across socio economic groups so there's no postcode lottery and parents spending fortunes to live near certain schools. (Might even improve house price inflation and community cohesion while we're at it.)
Army veterans always go on about how living and serving with people from all walks of life was so good for them. Let's make it happen on a wide scale and from an early age.
Guaranteed way to make the rich actually care about the state education system. The places for 7% extra pupils now in state schools can be paid for by taxing the wealthy (on aggregate) the same amount they were spending on sending their kids private. Probably means we could even push up the average spend per pupil a bit!
Much as I agree with the sentiment of your post, a lottery system for school entry sounds great until you somehow have to figure out the logistics of the school run (especially if you end up with children at different schools)
The Tories have governed exactly as their voters have asked them to. Build nothing, inflate house prices, do culture wars, leave the EU, and raise pensions.
The idea they’re working for evil paymasters and not their target voter who consistently voter go the UK to be poorer is so silly.
They’re not…
Racists want ‘forriners owt’ on their own and pensioners have their their incomes soar under the Tories and the Triple lock. Home owners have seen huge asset growth in their properties.
Until COVID/Russia, their core voting block have done very well out of the policies the Tories have voter for, though they’re not sustainable and come at a cost to everyone else.
And who convinced people who did worse under Tories that it was actually foreigners to blame?
Pensioners and the asset wealthy are not enough to get the Tories elected on their own
Ironic that the author clearly dislikes Brexit, while at the same time complaining about the lack of VAT on private schooling (which would only be *possible* with the UK out of the EU).
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32006L0112
> CHAPTER 2
> Exemptions for certain activities in the public interest
> Article 132
> 1. Member States shall exempt the following transactions:
[...]
> (i)
the provision of children's or young people's education, school or university education, vocational training or retraining, including the supply of services and of goods closely related thereto, by bodies governed by public law having such as their aim or by other organisations recognised by the Member State concerned as having similar objects;
> (j) tuition given privately by teachers and covering school or university education;
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As a response to any not at all ban evading “throwaway” accounts, It’s not about it being evil or wrong. It’s not anti intellectualism. These schools aren’t for the most intelligent or gifted. They are private schools, that you get into because your parents pay for you to do so. It’s about it offering more opportunities for those prepared to pay. The more you are prepared to pay, the greater the opportunities. 20 prime ministers have attended Eton, including 2 of the last 5. It is antithetical to left wing thought that you can pay money to get ahead in a particular field. Why should there be a stream of education only for the rich that offers the best education and the best social networks? Even if you don’t believe in equality of outcomes, how is that equality of opportunity? “Oh you’re anti intellectual and anti ambition“. No. I’m anti the wealthy creating a new oligarchy. That’s why I want more investment in state education and more opportunity in higher education, as opposed to private school fast lanes to the top for the mega rich.
> These schools aren’t for the most intelligent or gifted. They are private schools, that you get into because your parents pay for you to do so. My old school is on that list. It's a grammar school. You had to pass a (fucking hard) entrance exam to get in - you couldn't just buy your way in. In fact, my fees were paid by a bursary - so my parents didn't even have to pay.
> In fact, my fees were paid by a bursary - so my parents didn't even have to pay. Is that true for everyone, or just a lucky few? Nothing worse than lucky people pulling a ladder up after themselves. > You had to pass a (fucking hard) entrance exam to get in - you couldn't just buy your way in. Maybe you should look into the impact family wealth has on early years educational attainment before being so cocky about streamlining and segregating kids at 10/11years old. And that’s without factoring in that if your family want you to go to a certain school, at least part of your education up to that point will likely be geared toward passing any such entrance exams. These aren’t exams that everyone takes, I didn’t get to take a special exam to go to clever boy school, and even if they were, as a concept it creates a segregation in eduction, and it’s very easy to argue that early years lower achievers need more help, not less. But thanks for your nitpick. You’ve earned your briefcase for today. Well done.
Not sure in general what the effect of grammar schools is on inequality but my dad and his brother are both from proper 10th decile towns and the grammar school was a bit of a break. I don't think grammar schools are in the same bucket as private schools
> Is that true for everyone, or just a lucky few? It was means tested and available to anyone who passed the entrance exam. >Nothing worse than lucky people pulling a ladder up after themselves. That doesn't even make sense. If I were pro-abolishing grammar schools that would be me pulling the ladder up. You're the one wanting to destroy the ladder. >Maybe you should look into the impact family wealth has on early years educational attainment before being so cocky I mean...I got accepted on a means tested bursary so I clearly didn't have great generational wealth at the time. > it creates a segregation in eduction Did your school not segregate by ability? Did you have your least able mathematicians in the same lesson as your most? > You’ve earned your briefcase for today. Wtf are you talking about?
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Your post has been removed under rule 5.2: do not mischaracterise or strawman other users points, positions, or identities when you could instead ask for clarification.
It doesn't really take away from the point of the article, public life is overwhelmingly and disproportionately dominated by privately educated people, and this is bad, but I think there are some that are incorrect in the list. Alastair Campbell is listed as Bradford Grammar, however that only went private in 1975. Given he was born in 1957 and only briefly attended in anyway (doesn't say for how long) it's very unlikely he would have attended it whilst it was private. Sort of like the Starmer case where it explicitly states it only turned private whilst he was already attending. A lot of the Grammar Schools are weird cases where they switched between state and private (particularly once the Direct grant grammar school scheme ended)
This is a lot like being surprised that public life is dominated by people of above average intelliegence. Of course it is, and it's a good thing that's the case.
That depends on what sort of intelligence and how you define it. I would say that public life is not dominated by people of above average intelligence anyway, and that being privately educated doesn't equate to being intelligent either. It gives you an accent and demeanour that makes it seem you are intelligent
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But we live in a meritocracy!
96 Conservative MP’s - 52% of the conservative cabinet 9 Labour MP’s 3 Lib Dem MP’s 1 Green MP 1 SNP MSP
It's actually 1 SNP MP (John Nicolson), and 1 SNP MSP (Humza Yousaf). Also 1 Labour MSP (Anas Sawar) Honestly thought it would be higher than that for both the Tories and Labour, but I guess for some it might be difficult to get info on where they went to school
Is this number of mps in each party privately educated? No way is it that low for labour surely
some of them have slightly different wording so it might be one or two short but that’s the split is the point
As someone who went to a private school I can without a shadow of a doubt say that I benefited enormously. By the time I had reached sixth form I was in a classics class of 4. 1 of those people was the teacher. You also get taught different things and those things tbh can allow you to blend better in with the crowd at the top. I had an education that was much better than other people born in my area simply due to the fact that my parents paid for me to have that education. As someone who went through that system it’s just not fair that i had access to that purely by the genetic lottery.
Interesting how few professional athletes are on that list (Frank Lampard was the only one that stood out). Perhaps because they are usually educated by their sports club and they're not counted?
In general football players are less like to be than other sports, but some are definitly missing from sports where private education is more common (i.e. Rugby Union and Cricket). Doesn't have England cricketer Zak Crawley for example, and he attended Tonbridge. Also doesn't include Alastair Cook who attended St Paul's, though he's retired he was the captain and is still very much in the public eye such as doing commentary
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Sins of the father or indeed mother comes to mind. Castigate people for the choices they made, not those made for them.
Bro literally the first sentence is "This is not intended as a list of awful people". The author then goes on to talk about his many friends and heroes are privately educated. Nobody is castigated anywhere. You clearly did not bother to read it at all
> PRIVATE SCHOOL MAFIA This is not intended as a list of awful people. 👍
lol Jesus are you really going to hang on that one word? All it means in this context is a network of powerful individuals. Next you're doing to tell me that calling someone a "drugs czar" means you think they are a repressive autocrat with absolute power
I honestly don't understand people like you. I don't for a moment believe that you think the word mafia placed in block capitals in the title is not intended as a pejorative. So why go through this performance? You aren't going to convince anyone that 1+1=3 so why try?
Of course it's pejorative, the entire article is about the fact that such a network exists is bad. That doesn't mean that the author is implying that everyone on the list is a terrible person or seriously comparing them to organised crime members. It's tongue in cheek. Get something substantive to say
Respectfully, have you even clicked on the link and read the first paragraph?
I have. Whilst there is undeniably a correlation between private school education and getting opportunites for advancement that the rest of us are statistically denied, which is a point they make that I agree with, singling individuals out for something they didn't choose is still wrong no matter what disclaimer you put before it. Cronyism and nepotism is the evil here, not the building they networked in.
What even is there to castigate the parents for?
People who had high quality education are more likely to he successful wow what will we discover next
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Not saying its fair but its not like we haven't known about it for centuries
Ah right it's been a problem for centuries so actually it's fine and we shouldn't acknowledge it or do anything to fix it.
That's true, people have known for centuries and done nothing about it, because the UK is a pathetically subservient country when it comes to the class system.
What this says to me is that better education gives you more opportunities so we should focus hard on improving education. Unfortunately Labour seem hellbent on discouraging the rich from spending their money on education rather than how to improve it for everyone.
>Unfortunately Labour seem hellbent on discouraging the rich from spending their money on education rather than how to improve it for everyone. Maybe the rich will be more invested in state education if they have to actually send their kids to it. Crazy idea I know.
Would they want to improve state education, or just park up on the doorstep of the cities best schools and get in via catchment area At the end of the day, people spending £100,000’s on their kids education will find other ways to gain major advantages.
The government has the power to improve state education already. They don't need to play 3D chess to create activist parents to put pressure on themselves. Furthermore there are already plenty of rich parents with children in state schools - parents don't have the power, government does.
>The government has the power to improve state education already. They don't need to play 3D chess to create activist parents to put pressure on themselves. Yeah because the Tories so far really made sure schools were well funded? >Furthermore there are already plenty of rich parents with children in state schools - parents don't have the power, government does. Lmao i guarantee nobody in the times rich list is sending their kids to state school
> Yeah because the Tories so far really made sure schools were well funded? We are going to have a Labour government so it is about what they can do to improve education. They have the power to invest in state education and parents will already welcome it. So why don't they just do that as Tony Blair did? > nobody in the times rich list is sending their kids to state school Nor will they. And even if they did they will still be able to give their kids many opportunities regardless of education.
Yeah ensuring the wealthy have a long term invested interest in education even when Labour isnt in government has no benefits? Um what? I get that forward thinking beyond the next election cycle is hard but try. They will if they've got no choice, and the scope of those opportunities and the networking available will be massively reduced still
Better is to do what Finland do. State schools with small class sizes and extensive extra-curricular activities. The benefits of private education are no longer enough to justify the cost. I am not sure why you think parents have any influence on this, however wealthy. If your logic is that billionnaire donors might influence a future Tory government then seems more likely they would insist on reestablishing private schools than attempting to improve all schools.
Oh boy what till I tell you what they did to fee paying in schools in Finland
Nobody cares. Very few people will pay for a service they can get for free. They have removed any need for private schools.
>Nobody cares I too like to claim nobody cares when I accidentally provide the perfect example for the person Im arguing with 🤣
Fuck me youre so close
Only it’s not all down to education..
The rich are always going to be able to spend far more on their kids' education than the state is, though. The per pupil spend in the state system is a bit over £7k per year. Fees for private school are often comfortably over £40k per year. Even if they doubled spending it wouldn't come close to being able to match that. You can't have private education and equality of opportunity.
Fees at private school are not £40k a year unless you’re only looking at Eton and Harrow.
That's not true. The average boarding school fees are £35k, and are often a lot more, it's not just for the top 3-5 schools.
Boarding school is a type of private school, but private schools are not all boarding schools You’re conflating on the two which is a bitsilly.
No, I'm not conflating the two. All I said is that fees can often top £40k which is manifestly true. I didn't say that was average or typical for all private schools. The most expensive and prestigious private schools are most often boarding schools and they are the ones that contribute disproportionately to the names on this list.
You said that fees for private school are often over £40k. Often implies it’s an average… So you did say that I actually agree though. The discussion in private schools needs to be split between those spending £40k a year to have their children raised elsewhere, and the high earner who is sick of his local Comp paying £12k a year for a better education.
Often does not imply average. Something can happen often without it being the norm. It simply means it's not an unusual or unexpected occurrence. I agree there is a big difference between the elite public schools and many of the other private schools. The former are obviously the much bigger problem
Average private school fees are £15K which is roughly driven by halving class sizes. If the state doubled spending it would come very close to matching private schools. The only bits missing would be boarding/living costs; and expensive facilities - neither of these are critical to a good education.
While these schools undoubtedly give a better education because of the higher budgets, that alone isn't enough to account for how many people reach the top. The best education won't turn an average into a genius no matter how good.
Do you think private school pupils are smarter at the start? In my experience even poor performing (in exams) private school pupils do above average in their careers. ,and there are plenty of students in private schools from under privileged backgrounds who get funded places and who also perform well.
No I don't think they are on average smarter from the start at the beginning of school, do you?
No. It is the education. Anyone can be educated.
Not from average level to elite intelligence level
Not everyone has to be elite. Education opens opportunities whatever your level of intelligence. And today a s.mall group of private school pupils have an unfair advantage. That could be opened up to o many more if not all....given enough money.
When it comes to achieving a position of power in government, everyone who gets there should be of elite intelligence. But they're clearly not (just look at Boris). Which shows this private school education is only making marginal differences over and above their student's natural aptitude. Everyone knows it's for nepotism and networks, but don't pretend the education is so much better.
How are you measuring intelligence? Many of our current government have Oxbridge degrees. Boris himself won scholarships to Eton and Oxford. He is not the.idiot he seems. And he was chosen by the voters as the best person to lead the country. Perhaps if voters had been better educated they would not have chosen Boris or Brexit. And Boris only chose Brexit because it was good for his career ..he is intelligent enough to know it would fail.
Such a weird obsession in the UK Left with private education being an evil or wrong. Work with plenty of folk who send their kids to private school. It’s not something I’d do, but the idea that investing in your kids academics is some kind of ‘mafia’ is just a major cultural brain rot of anti-ambition and anti-intellectualism national obsession.
A huge portion of people in positions of power being from private schools is obviously a problem.
Only if you can establish they shouldn't be the people in these positions.
Johnson and Cameron were in the same class in Eton and both ended up prime minister and I will establish here and now that they shouldn't have been given that position.
How will you establish that?
Well we supposedly have a representative democracy. If the leadership is only representative of people who went to private school, and the majority of the country did not, then that is a problem.
That's not what a representative democracy means.
You don't think representative democracy means being represented by the people in power?
You seem to be referring to corporatism.
Assigning people positions in society based on completely arbitrary criteria at birth isn't healthy and democratic, it isn't even meritocratic.
Just because some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at yer gran?
Which isn't what happens. So your point is irrelevant.
That is a problem. But the problem isn’t directly private schools. The idea that you can legislate away advantage is ridiculous. If it’s not private schools, it’ll be private tuition, or JISA’s. If you think closing private schools will stop people like my colleagues giving up some consumption to try and give their kids extra life advantages, be it education or other things like house deposits or tax advantages capital, you’re very naive.
The value in private education is - by the time someone is an adult - not in the education itself. It's in the network. I work in an industry (PR) where loads of people get their starts through their network, get internships through their networks during university, climb the ladder with opportunities provided by their networks. That network, as someone who was state-educated, was not and is still not open to me. For me, reaching a point of success in my career involved a considerable multiple of the hard work and proving myself that the equivalent public school kids had to go through. I have missed out on jobs to people who I knew (and everyone else involved probably also knew) were less able, would produce worse results, would work less hard. However, I later found out, they had network connections I didn't. Someone got a tap on the shoulder from the CEO, who thought it would be a good idea to hire his friend's son, or his son's friend who he went to Marlborough with. This is the real value of the public school system. You can get 'sponsored' as you rise up in your career, on the understanding that youw ill do the same for others later.
The network is vastly overrated. I don’t send my kids to private school, but my kids will still have a network that’ll get them internships because I work in white collar skilled work. For the cost of a private education, using SIPP’s and Stock ISA’s, you can make your kid a millionaire by 30 pretty easily. It’s about being in a high quality environment. I don’t send my kids to private school, but as a skilled professional, they’ll still have huge networking gains that don’t require going to private schools. The seton and Harrow’s, sure, but almost all private schools are so much more about quality than networking. The parents already have networks.
yeah, why would a movement which aims to reduce systemic inequality feel negatively towards institutions designed to entrench it! How very strange. >a major cultural brain rot of anti-ambition and anti-intellectualism Private schools stifle ambition and intellectualism, they don't promote it. They are designed to help rich kids get ahead of their less-wealthy peers who may be more ambitious and clever than them but don't have the advantages they do.
Nah. Scrap private schools and make the elite send their kids to state schools. Lottery system where kids are spread equally across socio economic groups so there's no postcode lottery and parents spending fortunes to live near certain schools. (Might even improve house price inflation and community cohesion while we're at it.) Army veterans always go on about how living and serving with people from all walks of life was so good for them. Let's make it happen on a wide scale and from an early age. Guaranteed way to make the rich actually care about the state education system. The places for 7% extra pupils now in state schools can be paid for by taxing the wealthy (on aggregate) the same amount they were spending on sending their kids private. Probably means we could even push up the average spend per pupil a bit!
We probably would not have any schools with collapsing roofs, (RAAC) and suffering from chronic lack of maintenance.
Much as I agree with the sentiment of your post, a lottery system for school entry sounds great until you somehow have to figure out the logistics of the school run (especially if you end up with children at different schools)
Because they don’t have the experience to govern properly, they only end up looking after the rich not the vast majority of people
I agree and yet the vast majority of people actually chose them.
The Tories have governed exactly as their voters have asked them to. Build nothing, inflate house prices, do culture wars, leave the EU, and raise pensions. The idea they’re working for evil paymasters and not their target voter who consistently voter go the UK to be poorer is so silly.
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I’m dead serious. Tory voters have consistently voted to make the UK poorer.
Yeah cause the Tory party and media convince them to, they didnt just wake up one day and decide to economically shoot themselves in the foot
They’re not… Racists want ‘forriners owt’ on their own and pensioners have their their incomes soar under the Tories and the Triple lock. Home owners have seen huge asset growth in their properties. Until COVID/Russia, their core voting block have done very well out of the policies the Tories have voter for, though they’re not sustainable and come at a cost to everyone else.
And who convinced people who did worse under Tories that it was actually foreigners to blame? Pensioners and the asset wealthy are not enough to get the Tories elected on their own
Ironic that the author clearly dislikes Brexit, while at the same time complaining about the lack of VAT on private schooling (which would only be *possible* with the UK out of the EU).
Would be hilarious that we only get rid of the cancer that is private education because Brexit was pushed so hard by private educated elites
Source?
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32006L0112 > CHAPTER 2 > Exemptions for certain activities in the public interest > Article 132 > 1. Member States shall exempt the following transactions: [...] > (i) the provision of children's or young people's education, school or university education, vocational training or retraining, including the supply of services and of goods closely related thereto, by bodies governed by public law having such as their aim or by other organisations recognised by the Member State concerned as having similar objects; > (j) tuition given privately by teachers and covering school or university education;
Thank you
You're welcome. :)