People who would have sent their children to private schools are now not bothering, apparently. But so few children go to private schools anyway that it is difficult to see why this should pose any sort of problem to the state sector, which has been wrestling with the problem of falling rolls, leading to amalgamations and what have you, for years.
And nobody ever asks whether private schools are really all that good. They are prominent among the critics of the gravely deficient and defective examination system. Yet their own appeal is based on being exceptionally good within that system.
If the exams are educationally questionable, then being good at putting people through them cannot be said to prove that a school is a centre of academic excellence. If anything, it would seem to suggest the opposite. And one does have to question whether the people making these sales pitches are really very intelligent at all.
Where are the articles and documentaries about private schools and their bullying? Or the highly variable quality of their teaching? Or their Head Teachers who are in fact proprietors? Or their entrance exams for five-year-olds? Or their decidedly questionable employment practices? Or the cosy relationships of a few of them with Oxbridge admissions tutors? (Although who really cares about Oxbridge, anyway?) Or the fact that the rest are selling a pup?
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If we brought back grammar schools, we could put most private schools out of business within 10 years.
ReplyDeleteIndeed we could. Many of them used to be grammar schools, in fact.
ReplyDeleteWe could also get rid of socio-economically the most exclusive schools in the country, which are not the grammar schools, nor even the private schools, but the pseudo-comprehensive Lenin High Schools.