Private education - should it be banned? Discuss.

On the one hand, they give to society by giving out a very small number of places to disadvantaged children and by taking the financial burden from the state of educating private school pupils but on the other hand, they take away from society by entrenching class and privilege, and denying and reducing opportunity to 93% of children who were born to the wrong parents. Some of that 93% will obviously be capable of being brilliant doctors, judges, engineers, military officers, lawyers, architects etc., but society won't see all of their fruits - some of which will be better than their privately schooled equivalent who do get the opportunities that the state school pupil is denied. If you put me in a 100m race with Usain Bolt, I will beat him if I get a 30m headstart. It doesn't mean I'm faster than him.

They don't deny 93% of children opportunity and it's highly debatable how much opportunity they reduce for the 93% that do not go to private school.

The problem is not the existence of private schools but the fact that so many parents feel the need to send their kids there because state schools are inadequate. Getting rid of private schools won't improve state education but it sure as hell would reduce educational standards in this country and therefore would be detrimental to society.
 
They don't deny 93% of children opportunity and it's highly debatable how much opportunity they reduce for the 93% that do not go to private school.

The problem is not the existence of private schools but the fact that so many parents feel the need to send their kids there because state schools are inadequate. Getting rid of private schools won't improve state education but it sure as hell would reduce educational standards in this country and therefore would be detrimental to society.
Exactly, ban private schools and immediately drag down excellence to the lowest common denominator.
I can't see any argument for such a policy, other than pandering to envy, it would only achieve results detrimental to society.
Having said that I don't know anyone, at all, who went to private school, anyone who's done well, be they family or
friends, have all attended state schools, as did the ones who just plod along happily enough.
Many state schools are excellent, what is needed is the raising of standards of the bad ones to the good, thus reducing
the attractiveness of private education.
 
Exactly, ban private schools and immediately drag down excellence to the lowest common denominator.
I can't see any argument for such a policy, other than pandering to envy, it would only achieve results detrimental to society.
Having said that I don't know anyone, at all, who went to private school, anyone who's done well, be they family or
friends, have all attended state schools, as did the ones who just plod along happily enough.
Many state schools are excellent, what is needed is the raising of standards of the bad ones to the good, thus reducing
the attractiveness of private education.

I've seen people be successful with quite a variety of backgrounds in terms of education.
 
I’d certainly end their charitable status.
They are not charities.
I’d also make them publish who they gave scholarships to.
I bet very few have gone to the original intended, ie the poor.
I also would not give them access to the teachers’s pension scheme.
If teachers want to work in the private sector they should forego a state run pension scheme.
 
No idea but, rather than making profit and distributing it to their owners, schools with charitable status use some of what would otherwise have been surplus to provide free education to some children.

Provide 1 example please.
 
I’d certainly end their charitable status.
They are not charities.
I’d also make them publish who they gave scholarships to.
I bet very few have gone to the original intended, ie the poor.
I also would not give them access to the teachers’s pension scheme.
If teachers want to work in the private sector they should forego a state run pension scheme.

No problem with them losing charitable status if they are not functioning as such. I assume they then wouldn't have to give any scholarships if they didn't wish to, so no real need to publish any info on that.

I guess the pension thing depends how much, if any, time they have spent teaching in the state sector.
 
The Guardian being against private schools is hardly a great shock.

Of course it isn't, but the writer isn't a Guardian journalist (plenty of Guardian journo's are privately educated, including one of my best mates I'm afraid)

But it's challenging the myth that private schools having charitable status is a good thing and also that they somehow save the state billions per year, which quite a few on this thread have argued.

Interesting that even the Tories are maybe looking at ending the tax exemption, that Labour are looking at making school fees liable for VAT and that public schools in their original incarnation were for the education of the local poor.
 

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