I have been castigated endlessly for my views on this, slightly, controversial subject so here’s a brief explainer as to how I get to where I am and why I think there’s no room for complaint if you have to increase your fees for private school.
TL;DR – Basically … tough. Suck it up. But, there are myriad reasons for that brash statement and I’m not being antagonistic.
Without wanting this introduction to seem like a plea for sympathy, I grew up on a council estate, south of Glasgow, as the son of a single parent. That’s my opening gambit and it should be noted that it is, actually, significant in my forthcoming hypothesis.
I have only sentimental memories of my childhood. There was no trauma attached to it. My dad left when I was 18 months old [my brother was 1 month old] and so we grew up, not really thinking anything of it. My mum was incredible, she just did everything that a family should do. We had our grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins nearby, so the family was large and strong. Whenever I go back to Scotland to visit the family, I always make a point of visiting our square. Of course it’s tiny now to my eyes, but in my memories, it was vast. We learned how to ride our Raleigh Grifters there. How to roller skate. How to skid down a small grass mound on a bin bag when it was snowy. It was huge back then and it was all that we really needed.
Sentimental memories.
The reason I wrote a little about that is to give an idea of where I came from and what our living circumstances were. When I say that I grew up on a council estate, I’m not using it as a crutch to bolster any sense of my working class background, more of a leaping off point.
I feel as though I’m rambling here. This is about the Labour policy of putting VAT on private education.
I have, repeatedly, posted on Twitter that I think it’s a fair and strong policy. I have, repeatedly, posted in fairly strong terms, that I believe anyone who can afford private schooling is wealthy. This is the bit that seems to get me in trouble.
The, generally accepted, figures indicate that around 7% of the school population are in private education; somewhere near 615,000 of the actual 10,320,000 total. Obviously, these are estimates and only as useful as the most recent statistics, but they serve to show the disparity in the numbers quite well.
These figures, in isolation, show that there are a very privileged few that can attain private schooling.
From this point on, the comments I receive most often are along the lines of:
‘not all parents that send their kids to private school are well off.’
‘some parents scrimp and save to send their kids to private school.’
OK. Right, let’s see now, shall we. I did some actual research and the cheapest private school in the country is, currently, Manchester Grammar School with annual fees of, just, £12,570 [correct at time of publication].
£12,570 per child. Per year. If you have one child that goes to this school, the cheapest of them all, it would cost £87,990 to get them through senior school to university.
Nearly a hundred grand for something that is provided to the other 93% of the population … for free.
I will quickly interject here to say that I have nothing at all against parents who can afford this and nothing at all against private education, per se.
What I really object to is, constantly, being told that Mrs Jones saves up to send Little Timmy to private school and if they add another 20% it’s not fair and that they won’t be able to afford it anymore.
Right. Sorry, Mrs Jones but that’s sometimes how life works. If something is too expensive, don’t buy it. At one point, two years ago, my SKY bill ended up at £147 per month. I binned it. It was too much money for a luxury service I could actually get for free.
And this is the point with private education. You’re paying for a luxury. It’s not your, god given, right to send your children there. They have access to excellent, free education and always will have.
And now the callback to my sickly sweet reverie at the beginning. Take a look around the country and see how the other 93% are. For the most part, they will never, ever, be able to scrimp and save an additional twelve thousand pounds in a year. A great deal of people don’t even earn that much.
My mum, could not, under any circumstances, have added an extra twelve grand to her income to put me into private school. Twenty four grand if my brother wanted to go as well.
And this is my point:
you may feel hard done to because the fees are increasing but your baseline is so much higher than most of the population. That’s why you feel unfairly treated. You’re not though. You’re lucky. You can feel grateful that your’e in a position to do this for your kid[s].
Please though, don’t complain because the price is going up. Most will be able to swallow the increase. Some won’t. But that’s how a capitalist society works. You shouldn’t complain when you fall below the waterline when you’ve spent so many years above it.
As I mention above … when I post about the wealth disparity involved in private education, it isn’t because I’m jealous – I could afford to send my son to a private school; I don’t. It’s because I have been in both positions in society; I have a perspective from both ends of the telescope.
All I ask is for those who might be upset now, to take a step back and see how most of the country that surrounds you, actually lives.