There is a peculiar feature of British public life whereby spending your own money to escape the shortcomings of a public service is considered perfectly understandable, right up until the service in question involves a child wearing a blazer.
Faced with an eighteen-month NHS waiting list, few would condemn someone for paying privately. What else are they supposed to do? Suffer nobly in the interests of collective solidarity?
Yet apply much the same reasoning to education and the moral temperature changes considerably. A parent who decides the local state school isn’t right for their child, and makes considerable sacrifices to find an alternative, is apparently participating in the reproduction of class privilege.
I have children in private education, so I’m hardly a disinterested observer. Nor am I unfamiliar with the plight of the state sector. My nephews attend state schools across Surrey and Hertfordshire, my sister is a SENCO and deputy head in a state school, and I’m a member of the old boys’ association of the grammar school I attended in Kent.
These aren’t competing tribes to me. They’re my family, my own education and the schools that help shape the lives of people I care about.
I wrote about this last year in Imitation, Not Demolition, arguing that dismantling successful independent schools does precious little to improve their state counterparts. I still believe that. But the more uncomfortable question, and one I perhaps gave too little attention to then, is how we reconcile the opportunities we want for our own children with the inequalities we can plainly see around us.
Recently, I heard the current headteacher of my former grammar school describe the financial pressures facing the school. The struggle to find money for the basics was depressing enough. More troubling was the prospect of closing all its outdoor play areas because the school could no longer afford the maintenance required to keep them safe.
Meanwhile, my son has access to a 4G sports pitch, an architect-designed pavilion and acres of immaculate playing fields. I find that contrast deeply uncomfortable. I also know which facilities I’d rather my son had. And therein lies much of the difficulty with this debate.
Private healthcare and education aren’t entirely comparable. Education confers advantages in a world of finite university places, jobs and opportunities. Private healthcare can also exacerbate inequality, particularly when the same overstretched clinicians serve both systems. But neither observation resolves the question facing an individual parent.
Suppose your child is bright but struggling, anxious, or simply unsuited to the local school’s environment. Perhaps you’ve watched their confidence diminish or their enthusiasm disappear. Another school seems likely to suit them better, and through savings, additional work or family assistance, you can just about afford it. Are you genuinely expected to decline? To explain to your twelve-year-old that, although the alternative might offer a better education, you’ve decided against it in the interests of maintaining ideological consistency? It’s a heroic position to adopt on somebody else’s behalf.
The standard rejoinder is that affluent, engaged parents should remain within the state system and use their influence to improve it. There’s merit in this. Schools benefit from involved families, and social mixing is valuable. But having family working within state education makes me particularly wary of the suggestion that its problems could be solved by a few more articulate parents turning up to governors’ meetings. My sister and her colleagues are hardly short of commitment. They work within budgets, staffing constraints and statutory obligations that parental enthusiasm cannot simply wish away.
Rory Stewart has recently defended private schools as a position that has become almost taboo in British politics. One of his observations is straightforward: families paying for independent education continue contributing to state provision through taxation while funding their own children’s schooling.
Around 6–7% of British pupils attend independent schools. Their parents aren’t entitled to a refund from the Treasury, nor does every privately educated child represent a fixed saving to the state. But the sector absorbs demand that would otherwise fall, at least in part, on publicly funded schools. Stewart also observes that restricting private schools won’t stop wealthy parents purchasing educational advantage. It’s something I know to be true from my own school-gate contemporaries. They’ll employ tutors, move into expensive catchment areas or find other means of securing what they believe their children need.
We seem considerably more comfortable with educational advantage purchased through a mortgage than through a termly invoice.
The introduction of VAT on school fees adds another complication. There is a legitimate case for taxing private education to improve state schools. But the financial consequences are uneven. For the very wealthy, the additional cost is an irritation. For families already stretching themselves, it can make the choice utterly unaffordable. The policy may raise useful revenue while making private education less accessible to families outside the wealthiest households. Both consequences deserve consideration. Note too that VAT on private healthcare remains exempt from VAT, even when purchase by those who can comfortably afford it. Apparently, paying to escape an NHS waiting list is a legitimate personal choice, whole paying for education is a taxable luxury.
Stewart’s observation about the obligations of privilege is vitally important. An independent education ought to confer responsibilities as well as advantages. Schools with extraordinary facilities, staffing and resources should be expected to contribute meaningfully beyond their own gates, through partnerships, shared provision and opportunities for children who would otherwise never set foot inside them. In many cases this is true, schools open up their grounds, classrooms and resources to local schools and other groups, sometimes at a cost, but frequently also free of charge. Nevertheless, looking at the condition of my former school’s outdoor facilities, I find myself wondering whether some of the considerable resources within the independent sector could be put to better use through closer and more targeted relationships with neighbouring state schools.
None of this means independent schools are neither universally better, nor that their advantages are always deserved. Some are complacent, socially insular and excessively expensive. The inequalities such institutions reinforce are real. But so too are the inequalities created by housing, tutoring, parental time and professional connections. Singling out school fees because the transaction is more conspicuous is a remarkably selective way of approaching educational inequality.
I don’t expect anyone to admire my decision to educate my children privately, nor do I need them to. I recognise the advantages it brings, including some that have little to do with the quality of teaching. But when I hear a headteacher worrying about whether his pupils will be able to use their playground, while knowing what awaits my son at school the following morning, my first instinct isn’t to apologise for the latter. It’s to wonder how we’ve allowed the former to become remotely acceptable.
AI: Ai did some research on the numbers and help me close a few holes in my knowledge.
