Election 2024

Desert Orchid said:
According to the High School of Glasgow (private) website:

Broadly speaking, the average cost for private day schools is £4,980 per term, or £14,940 per school year.

(20% VAT on top of that would amount to just under £3k.)

That doesn't include boarding. I am definitely all in favour of imposing VAT on private schools. VAT is meant to be a tax on luxury items and it would indeed be a luxury in the eyes of many working class - and even middle-class - families to be able to afford to educate one's children privately, and if they can afford £15k per year they can almost certainly afford another £3k.

A lot of the typical private-school users are very like the family of some of my friends at uni. They were lovely guys and very down to earth but their families' businesses meant their accountants could work the books in such a way that everyone in the family was privately educated yet they still managed to get a grant to attend uni.

And, of course, there's more to the education than the teaching, learning, facilities, etc. It also buys certain privileges via 'the old school tie' connections.

The guys I knew at uni were more than aware of this. When we were applying for teacher training we had to go through a 40-minute rigorous interview. The head of the panel was a senior member of staff at the private school these guys attended. We were coming out of these interviews pretty shell-shocked. These guys were telling us their interview consisted of a handshake (not a masonic one, just an 'old friend' one) and a "How's it going? You're in, by the way." That is a verbatim repetition of what one of them said to us.

Education has changed, though, beyond recognition. I went to a Senior Secondary (a Catholic one for the best qualified boys in the Catholic primaries in the entire county). It was harsh, disciplined - not that we didn't get up to stuff - and very focused but I was doing stuff in first year that I ended up trying to teach to senior pupils at comprehensive schools without much success.

I put that down to Primary Education of the era. I was doing long division in P3 or P4 and was parsing sentences in P5. (For the uninitiated, imagine the scene from The Shawshank Redemption when Andy is trying to teach the young gallus inmate how to break down a sentence. Expressions like "subordinate clause of reason" were no strangers to us.

I was doing subjunctive verbs in my second year of Spanish. By the time I was finishing teaching I wasn't having to teach them at Higher level in a language in which they are in common usage.

But these are all symptoms of a society that is in freefall.

All the great civilizations bring about their own downfall. Modern Western society is heading the same way.

Rant only just started but I'll restrain myself...
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Someone told me that the law firm she worked for vetted applicants by the schools they attended. Wrong school and they were out. She was defending private education by the way and seemed quite proud of it!
 
Ian_Davies said:
As stated, the private education system is a recipe for idiots from wealthy families ending up running the country and that's bad for the economy.

Call this the politics of envy if you like, but I call it the economics of pragmatism.

Everything is relative and, by definition, wanting the "best" for your child is wanting the "worst" for somebody else's - it's human nature to want to do it, but society needs to put strict limits on the ability to do it for the good of society overall.
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I think that's pretty much restricted to the English Public School system in general and Eton in particular.

And, I have to say, I don't agree with much else in your post Ian. I think if people can afford to pay for private education they are entitled to spend their money accordingly.

One of my above friends went on to teach (ML, same as me) in the private school from which he emerged. At a party one evening he was going on about how much better teaching was in private schools. This prompted my question, "Are you saying you are a better teacher than me or my brothers?"

He couldn't answer that.

State education needs to start all over with a blank canvas and blank cheque. Part of the funding could come from closing all the mickey-mouse 'universities' that have sprung up over the last 50 years. God knows how much they are taking out of the system.

Pay teachers what you pay consultants and don't let them into training unless they have an honours degree (I don't but my ordinary MA meant something in the 1970s) and can construct a sentence without grammar or spelling mistakes. And don't let them qualify until they can show that they can handle teenagers whose hormones are running wild. And halve class sizes.

And put the current crop of education advisers in a boat and send them the fvck to Rwanda. They are killing education.
 
To Barjon - you having a half-decent lawnmower can't contribute towards someone like Hancock being in charge of the nations health, that's the difference.

A big part of this country's problems these last 10 to 15 years is too many idiots in charge and the common denominator is that nearly all of them were privately educated.
 
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My daughter used to say that, had she gone to private school there is no way that she would have understood or been able to cope with the kids at the inner city schools that she taught at. It’s surely easier to teach children who are well fed from stable homes in small class sizes when you have the best facilities ( including sports facilities: how many school playing field were sold off by the Conservatives?). And none of them have special needs.
 
I used to do a lot of work as a private contractor at a number of private schools and I can vouch that that system produces highly educated messed up individuals that do not have the sense they where born with generally
 
My wife and I could have sent our boys to private school but chose not to due to getting a very narrow view of life where no-one is desperately getting by and facing the reality of life when you go into the workplace. No way should schools already only for those that can afford them should get any assistance. Surely in any decent society it should be those with very little should get help. It's a reflection of the selfish nature of society we have now moans when the haves want more. A very depressing look whatever way you dress it up.
 
jinnyj said:
Absolutely pathetic comment. If you read my comment, my parents and grandparents sacrificed a huge amount so we could have the best education possible. Compared to my contemporaries from the primary school I left to go there, we had very little. Clothes were second hand (including school uniform), one UK based holiday a year and we didnt even own a tv until I was about 13. My mother used to save up Green Shield stamps to buy items like a spin dryer.

Maybe have a look at some of these on full benefits and see what they have in their houses!
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It's cringing the amount of drivel I am reading.
It shows a total lack of knowledge about the type of people that send their kids to these schools. It's not about the likes of Eton but the smaller Independent schools.

It really is a politics of envy and labour at Its worse.
 
I just roll my eyes when some of the very same people who rightly bemoan the woes of the nation, with so many idiots catapulted into positions of power, want to protect the very existing system which creates the talentless Hancocks and Hardings etc of this world.

Spending your own money on a decent lawnmower harms no one and deprives no one - spending your own money on sending your idiot kid to a private school to increase their chances of ending up in an inappropriate position of power and hence able mess up the country potentially harms the country and is manifestly unfair on kids whose parents can't afford to do the same.

Doesn't bother me personally - life has been absurdly good to me - but if you want a better country start giving every kid the same opportunities so the genuine cream rises to the top.

There will still be rich and poor, powerful and powerless, but you will have fewer idiots calling the shots and the obscene chasm between the wealthiest and the most poverty stricken will narrow a little.

It's a no brainer tbh - meritocracy benefits the vast majority in the long run.
 
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It shows how much the political epicentre and definitions have changed since 1979 when the idea of for once focussing on the circa 93% of kids in State schools rather than the circa 7% privately educated is viewed as "communism."

Since when was "equality of opportunity" "communism?"

Dearie me.

It's going to cost a bit more to give your kid an advantage over a kid from a poorer family, that's all - Starmer and Streeting are two of the most moderate Labour politicians in history.

It's not like Corbyn is about to become PM - this is what 14 years in power does to rabid Tories, the merest sign the wealth and privilege gravy train might be slowing down just a tiny bit sends them into "Starmergeddon" panic.
 
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I think you mean "advocate," not "invoke" - if you were privately educated your parents should be demanding a refund.

Either way, you're wrong - a tax on private education is hardly communism.
 
Not everyone who goes to public school is an idiot, Ian, and not everyone at a state school is a thwarted genius. Rather than tear down something that is good - the education provided by private schools - why not concentrate on making something it’s equal - the education provided by the state (although there’s many a state school which already achieves that).

Anyway, the idea of “equal opportunity” might be a fine ideal, but it’s impossible to achieve for very many reasons of which not being able to go to a public school is but one and probably far less important than having good teachers.
 
Ian_Davies said:
spending your own money on sending your idiot kid to a private school to increase their chances of ending up in an inappropriate position of power and hence able mess up the country potentially harms the country and is manifestly unfair on kids whose parents can't afford to do the same.
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I rest my case. This applies to my previous post.
 
Again to Barjon - I think that's what VAT on private school fees is designed to strive for.

Creating funds to help the State system catch up.

Abolishing private education isn't in the Labour manifesto - it's about giving the vast majority of kids a fairer life chance.

And what I suspect is that there are those who don't want to see the majority of kids given a fairer life chance.

They want to protect a system that makes it possible to purchase a better education, better networking opportunities and ensure that the existing wealth and power stays in the families where it currently resides.

Quite apart from being morally unfair, it's a recipe for an inefficient economy as too many key roles are held by people who are, to quote an old ex-Stanford colleague of mine, "aggressively positioned for their capabilities." (still makes me laugh 23 years later - hilariously-understated USA turn of phrase)

Joking aside, that really is bad for everyone.

Take Hancock - the only person pleased with how far he's got in life (apart from him) will be his mum.

The other 68 million of us have suffered from it.

We need tomorrow's captains of industry and other business plus senior politicians to be the smartest and the most hard working, the intellectual elite among the entire national pool, not just the pond confined to those whose parents had the cash to privately educate them.
 
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Slight tangent...

Years ago at Ascot I met a few forumites one of which was Terry from the old C4 bunker. A day or two later we were both posting about how much we'd enjoyed everybody's company - and we did - and Terry said something along the lines of wanting to spend an evening with me over a few pints to get to know me better.

I read the comment out to Mrs O who looked askance and quipped, "If he thinks he can get to know you over a couple of pints then he'll never know you!"

(I am a much more complex person than I portray on here.)

But I really wouldn't mind sitting down with Ian over a few Guinnesses to wash down a tiramisu and see where the discussion goes...
 
I don't actually drink alcohol, so I'd probably be on the dandelion & burdock or some other soft drink.

I very much enjoy reading your views here, and I both like and admire the civilised way when necessary you agree to disagree (a dying art).
 
You keep on about Matt Hancock, Ian, and I absolutely agree he was a lightweight . It’s not so much down to his public school education as it is to the absence of any heavyweights to put in place. There’s precious few of those knocking about in the Commons nowadays compared to the past - they’ve all found better things to do.
 
I have mentioned him a few times, but there are many others.

The calibre of so many people who get into positions of power has never been lower - Labour isn't exactly the brains trust, the Tories have had the most light weight Cabinet of my lifetime and even their supposedly-smart business donors have made idiotic gaffes.

Imagine being so stupid you bet on an election UNDER YOUR OWN NAME using an online account?

They can't even be corrupt efficiently.

For me, that whole pay for public school/networking path is largely to blame as it's the origin, the genesis, of the path to power for so many of them.

How many kids from poor backgrounds could have shone or could yet shine if given equal opportunity?

And yet some label this equality of opportunity aspiration the "politics of envy."

The fact is it's the politics of wanting to create a more equal society, where the nation is led by the most intelligent, not the offspring of the most wealthy.
 
Are we saying that choice is down to cost? If that's the case we may soon be about to find out at what point we (individually) can afford to choose.
 
barjon said:
You keep on about Matt Hancock, Ian, and I absolutely agree he was a lightweight . It’s not so much down to his public school education as it is to the absence of any heavyweights to put in place. There’s precious few of those knocking about in the Commons nowadays compared to the past - they’ve all found better things to do.
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Many either refused to work under Johnson or were thrown out by him. He destroyed the party in much the same way that he destroys everything.
 
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