To wonder how one would go about abolishing private schools?

[Chuffin]

If anyone is following the @abolisheton campaign, they state their aim is to integrate private schools into the public sector and hope this to be included in Labours next manifesto.

My children are about to start independent school, having had a terrible time for a whole host of reasons in their state primary.

Aside from the moral argument for or against private schools, I am very interested in whether it would be legally possible to abolish private schools and how this would happen? Would this even be feasible realistically?

I can't work out where the money and space would come from. I guess the state would buy private school premises and employ the teachers? Not all of them obviously, as there would be bigger classes. Quite the opposite approach to the current cuts to education funding!

I suppose schools have to be licensed in some way so a batshit labour government could refuse to issue licenses.

But it ain't going to happen.

I guess step 1 would be to remove charitable status.

Wouldn’t removing charitable status and therefore adding VAT simply make them even more exclusive to the super rich?

I think step one will need to be watering the money tree because funding for education is on its knees as it is, without thousands more pupils to educate!

Why on earth would you want to abolish private schools?

I don't think it's possible. I hope to god the next government is not labour but even if it is, I don't think they would be able to do it.

Hypocrisy. I believe I’m right in saying there are many labour mps who send their children to private school.

I think the provision of education is exempt from VAT and charitable status exempts them from paying corporation tax. So two different ways to attack, if that's what you want to do. Being exempt from VAT does also mean they can't claim it back on purchases, but I would assume payroll is the biggest cost anyway.

Yes @Lllot5 you are right, most labour MPs send their kids to private schools, and live in very expensive areas of London. Jeremy Corbyn himself lives in a whole Victorian house in Islington (very expensive and posh area of central/north London)

I don’t think they can be abolished(sadly). Ideally they shouldn’t have charitable status, but I understand that would be legislatively difficult. So VAT is the obvious solution.

"Wouldn’t removing charitable status and therefore adding VAT simply make them even more exclusive to the super rich?"

No, charitable status is worth about £200 per pupil per term. And not all schools are charities.

VAT cannot be charged on education in schools and universities for as long as we remain in EU, so no government can do that until after Brexit. And I hope that there will be a proper reassessment of what a future general consumption tax wouid be like, not piecemeal changes.

The government wouid have to buy out premises at full market value and employ the teachers. It's going to be pretty expensive, and I wouldn't want to have a child in education in either sector in the crunch years. Sixth forms might be worst hit

I work in the Arts and Education and there is ALOT of support for this amongst my colleagues.

I personally think it’s ridiculous and that if I had the money I’d send my children to the local independent school. One style of education doesn’t fit everyone.

“Jeremy Corbyn himself lives in a whole Victorian house in Islington (very expensive and posh area of central/north London)”

To be fair, he did buy it a very long time ago- so long ago that Islington wasn’t posh yet!

I'd love to be able to get my dd into small homely private school we have near us. Her current school cannot cope with a very small problem that plagues us.

School is known for it.
Not all sizes fits all.
Children need different styles and environments sometimes.

We need more variety not less when it comes to education.

I dont really understand how something is nationalised. I suppose the government passess legislation to sieze control of stuff and the either compensates or not. I cant see that getting through parliament.
Other mechanisms might be to make it illegal to charge for education and offer to take over schools that could no longer make ends meet.

To be fair he is used to large grand houses, having the advantage of being raised in one.

Yeah true, but even back then a house in Islington in London was significant more than other areas of London (bar Kensington & Chelsea) and outside of London. Pretty sure he want to a private school himself too.

Agree it does not seem possible to get rid of private schools and I'm not sure why you would want to, it would be another burden on the education system which is already under-funded.

Another way:

• Put so much money into state education that its offer educationally becomes comparable to the private schools

Yes this seems the most feasible way Teen.

They talk as if they are able to simply take control of them overnight. The leader of the campaign wants to turn Eton into a further Ed college...

Surely the best thing would be to plough money into the state sector so that there is no need for independent, rather than spend money fighting legal challenges and buying out the private sector?

We had that with grammar schools and it was ripped away.

Many people from working class backgrounds, families with no interest in education were able to get kids into grammar school.

That's without parental input. Eg your family could be totally anti education, not interested, drug addicts, whatever but if you showed potential, you had a chance to elevate yourself. Without relying on family.

Infact I can think of one student right now whose future doesn't hold much for her but so so bright. Been in care system, Foster care etc.

Her story and future I'm sure would have been very different if we had grammar system back properly.

Chiffin imagine just how many legal challenges and how much money would be thrown agaisnt such a move.

It's so remarkably stupid. It's like such groups cannot think for themselves, just trot out same rubbish.

No new solutions or ideas. Keep on trying to drag eduction down whilst simultaneously all usually either grammar or private education themselves and.... Their dc.

You cannot nationalise privately owned property (whether owned by an individual, a charity or a business) without paying the owners the proper market value in a compulsory purchase scheme.

So have they said where they will find the money from? Or if not proposing to buy the school sites/equipment, where do they intend to put you?

Especially boarding for offspring of British forces and civil servants overseas.

“Many people from working class backgrounds, families with no interest in education were able to get kids into grammar school”

No they weren’t. This is one of the great myths of grammar schools..

they talk about privatising Eton, but what about the small specialised private schools? schools for particular religions or for SEN or forest schools? Is the state sector really going to be able to replicate and/or take over all of those?

For the cost of Eton, the super-rich could home-educate with private tutors and 'homework clubs' and find a way to create an even more exclusive system, and you couldn't legislate against that.

It is a crazy idea and if it became Labour policy, it would make a lot of parents less inclined to vote Labour.

I am all for putting much more money & resources into the state school system, but trying to abolish private schools is the wrong way to go.

Easy peasy: impose quotas. Universities and the Civil Service (for a start) shouldn't be able to take more than 7% of ex-private school pupils as students or employees, assuming circa 7% of the total population is privately schooled.

I hate Old Etonians as much as anybody possibly could, but if it came down to Eton vs. comprehensives, from personal experience I'd rather abolish comps. They are just violent, prison-like holding pens for the future precariat, utterly unfit for any educational purpose. From what I can remember, I rather liked Ivan Illich's ideas in Deschooling Society: he wanted to shut down schools and expand libraries instead. The internet would certainly reduce most of the practical challenges to expanding what was essentially a kind of state-supported autonomous home education.