Robert Verkaik’s piece explores fully and fairly the hypocrisy of the claims made by public schools to justify their charitable status (Private schools now claim to help us all. It’s desperate stuff, Journal, 30 April). It falls short, however, of exposing the wider damage done by the sheer scale of public school education in Britain. This holds back social and economic progress, further entrenches inequality and privilege, and undermines the status and importance of state-funded education.
He cites the example of Finland, which has a national education system. What he might also have said is that Finland is a dynamic and successful EU economy. It punches far above its weight in terms of its size. In other EU economies such as France and Germany – both far larger than Finland – the role of the private school is to offer educational support for those who struggle to compete in the strongly supported state educational systems of both countries. As Verkaik rightly concludes, the huge benefits of private education for the few in Britain are denied to millions of other British citizens.
Richard Tudway
Principal, The Centre for International Economics
• The high cost of private education is to provide privilege and a smooth passage through university, careers and social status, not better teaching. It should be acknowledged that state school teachers work with less funding and do a lot more for pupils of all abilities than their public school counterparts. Private schools have no place in a modern democracy. They perpetuate the division of society according to wealth.
Linda Karlsen
Whitstable, Kent
• Robert Verkaik argues that “a child at a secondary private school has three times more money spent on his or her education than one at a state school” and that this “allows 7% of the population to buy advantages over the rest of society”. Even if that is true, were independent schools to be abolished, the state sector would still need to find £6,000 per year for each of the children educated in an independent school. With 615,000 children in private education, that would require nearly £4bn a year from the taxpayer, never mind the costs of creating the new classrooms and other facilities needed.
While there are good arguments that replacing public expenditure with private is not a legitimate charitable benefit, that doesn’t alter the fact that the cost to the taxpayer will still go up if private provision is abolished. Verkaik doesn’t say where this money will come from. If he did manage to find an extra £4bn for state education, how would he justify to parents currently using the state system that the money would not be spent on their children but on the children of the wealthy?
Julian Gall
Godalming, Surrey
• There will always be private education. Now, more than ever, there is intense competition for decent jobs and a good lifestyle, and even less-advantaged parents will do all they can to improve their child’s chances in life – even moving homes to have access to the “better” state school or paying for extra tuition. I ran a small prep school for a number of years and parents struggled to pay our modest fee, recognising the benefit of small classes leading to more focus on pupils’ individual needs and progress.
And what is never recognised and mentioned is that each fee-paying pupil frees up a place in a state school.
Jan Millington
Southborough, Kent
• Robert Verkaik claims that, along with David Cameron and others, Theresa May benefited from a private educational advantage. This is somewhat misleading. Records indicate that, although she had earlier been a pupil at an independent Roman Catholic convent school, from the age of 13 she was educated at Holton Park girls’ grammar school. During May’s time there the school became part of Wheatley Park school, an Oxfordshire coeducational comprehensive. I’m sure Wheatley Park was a perfectly good school, but that was not a private education.
Flora Alexander
Oxford
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