AIBU that VAT on school fees makes no economical sense?

[fuckwitery]

Trying to research what it costs the state to put a child through school each year. Figures I've found show between £6 - £8k. We pay £13k per DC per year. That's prep, so will be more for senior school. So at the mo introducing VAT on these fees would add £2,600 to the state coffers. £4k for senior school.

We, and lots of others who just about manage to pay for private schooling, will be forced to take their children out. Therefore it's a NET loss for the state?

Or am I missing something.

Bbcessex well you can hardly expect other parents to put their time, energy, money and contacts into state education for all if you aren't prepared to, can you?

But lots of people who make decisions about funding state schools have used them for their children, and I'm sure that will continue to be the case.
There is no coherent argument in favour of the abolition of private education. There are, however, a lot of pious busybodies who have nowt better to do than be censorious about other people's choices.

I've put a tonne of effort into my DDs school..state .. and DSs. - independent. I'm interested in my children's education wherever it comes from.

I'd have been delighted to save the money I've (we've ) paid on fees throughout the years but am happy with the choices in the circs.

I know many parents with a similar ethos.

Karlos.. education is always going to be an emotive subject and there are no easy answers.

The rich and influential, and the 7% (15% in London) of parents who use private schools wouldn't tolerate the state sector being run the way it is if their own children were at state schools. And given most of these people are Tories (with a sprinkling of hypocritical Labour voters and Lib Dems).

I admit I'm a mc tosser who moved to a nice area with a state primary with a v good reputation and lots of other nice middle class people like me and paid the inflated house prices.

On the whole, I don't see how we as mc parents do improve the quality of the teaching, surely that's only down to the teacher?

All I can really do to affect the teaching is to buy my dc tutoring in the holidays - that doesn't affect anyone else's kids though.

So I am wondering exactly how mc parents improve outcomes for other kids, not just their own kids.

I don't want at state monopoly. I don't think it pushes up standards, in fact I think it reduces quality if you have less option to move schools.

I want to be able to choose a school. Increasing costs mean less are able to choose a school.

Certainly mc parents don't flock in to support the school. If it's anything like ours, they don't go near it!
I spend my cultural capital educating my own children as do others. Fortunately i have wide interests and can support / teach lotsof stuff! I doubt any other child at the school benefits from my input into my children.

Oh and of course I'm on the PTA - but the amount we raise is enough to buy a bit of IT, a few books, and fund a few small projects, it's not enough to find extra TAs or staff or make a real difference - i doubt it makes a measurable difference to outcomes.

"There is no coherent argument in favour of the abolition of private education."

Yes there is. It entrenches privilege, And not forgetting dear old Alan Bennett's remarks that anyone who emerges at the end of a private education not convinced that it should be abolished has been failed by their education.

Rather bemused that the wish to dance for a living is equated with the no choice situation of having a severe, life long, social communication disorder

Didn't Alan Bennett go to a grammar school?

I haven't RTFT but thought I would add my ten pence.

Parents who are paying to put their children through private school are also paying the tax through their wages, some which goes to the state schooling (and lets be honest, most are on 40% tax if they have children at private school, especially more than one!) , not all private schools have charitable status and it saves other school places in a system already overloaded. I don't see why it is then fair to add VAT and increase the payments by 20%

"There is no coherent argument in favour of the abolition of private education"

Private schools deepen and perpetuate inequality and social segregation.

That's the best argument against them.

It's just wrong that the richest, cleverest and best supported children get twice as much spent on their education as underachieving, poorly supported and struggling children. It's wrong that privately educated children get ever more spent on them while state educated kids are having school funding per head cut.

It's just not fair and not ok.

PP, rather than actually closing the sites, I would gradually turn them into state schools - plenty of room that way! In any case, we will have a demographic downturn in a few years soon (barring mass immigration etc), so that will relieve a bit of pressure!

Education is a right I think in this country.

So is food.
You wouldn't expect different levels of tax to be payable in buying food from waitrose as opposed to Aldi because they are purchased in a different building. Yet one costs more than the other. We accept that is fair.
Ditto schools.
if you want to reduce private schools, parents must feel that their state school is an attractive prospect. (More carrot than stick ).

For those asking to see the EU directive on education being exempt from VAT (alongside many other services) the detail is below. If you select the EN PDF and scroll down to page 27 it's absolutely clear and nothing to do with it being a luxury or non luxury.

Source: I work at HMRC.

eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32006L0112

Haven't read all the way through. I have always voted Labour until this election. I also sent my son to a private school. He was there from junior nursery aged 3 to age 18 in 6th Year.

Edinburgh,where I live, has around 25% of its children in private schools. I doubt very much that Edinburgh Council wants them added to its roll.

It is politics of envy.

If you select the EN PDF and scroll down to page 27 it's absolutely clear and nothing to do with it being a luxury or non luxury

I don't know where this idea came from. Same with tampons.

"Why on earth is there no vat on school fees ?"

Because thems the EU rules.no tax on education, however it's paid for.

"It is politics of envy"

If there is competition in life for the best university places and for jobs, is it wrong to feel sad and angry that the children of the well-off may leap-frog over the backs of our children to get them, not because they are more deserving of them but because they'd had an unfair and unearned leg up from an expensive education?

I have special contempt for the Diane Abbots of this world. You either believe in equality of opportunity for children or you don't. If you believe in it, why are you paying to prop up a system which does more to undermine it than anything else? Utter hypocracy.

I do find it extraordinary that some people dismiss other people's principles as "the politics of envy". If you think about it, it's one of the most insulting things you could possibly say.

Buyinh or renting property at a high premium near a popular state school, tutoring (by parents or paid tutors), providing "enriching" activities, is still using parents' money for DCs' education.

Well it's hardly not insulting to say that anyone who sends their kids to private school is taking advantage of an unfair system, trampling over the backs of the poor etc. Rather than just doing the best as they see it for their own kids.

Once you get into these kinds of moral and emotive judgments...

Or better still, don't add VAT onto the fees for parents to pay.
Just remove charitable status from the schools. Who are we kidding they are not charities; they are profitable businesses.

The private schools near me don't do anything to benefit people beyond themselves and a lot of the 'good' I've heard has been letting a local state school use the playing fields once a term or something.

I suppose the bottom line on that is back to plurality.

If only state schooling was available, then - by the logic of the poster above - the national standard would be reduced. There would not be different educational models running in England showing that education can be carried out successfully other than by the he means currently adopted as government policy (unless of course you're an out-and-out Tory who think the freedoms of the Free School programme fix this point whilst still being free at point of use).

I'm not sure how much throwing money at state schools is going to be the whole solution. I read in thread after thread that the teaching in private schools is no better (and can be worse) than in the fully qualified state sector, that teachers work just as long and hard in both (though private school teachers are a bit less good because they couldn't hack it in the state sector), that private schools often don't offer much more than state schools (though that's obviously not true for specialist schools).

Now, I don't buy in to those arguments fully, but they are frequently aired on MN. Which suggests an ambivalence about the private sector, which of course needs buttressing and defending in some cases for sure And that ambivalence (which roughly boils down to 'yes it's expensive, but you'll get better teaching in the state sector') masks one underlying truth - one of the differences is the ethos.

Sorry, realise that's a bit of a rambling post. Hope it's comprehensible.