Education superclass?

[Amber2]

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/iainmartin1/100245274/it-is-much-worse-than-sir-john-major-says-a-new-superclass-is-being-created-in-london/

This is interesting coming from John Major ...sounds like more lobbying along the lines of the Sutton Trust but do people really think it's much worse than it ever has been..? and this is do with with the inexorable rise of London...and the global money flowing in there...and so to creating an elite superclass of private schools also ...not just any old private school but a small handful of elite ones, applications to which have reached record numbers, presumably more and more from London and from overseas with over inflation rises in fees pricing out the traditional middle classes that used to be able to afford these schools.

Oh, and when learning languages, I adopted the policy that it would be a bad idea to learn the language of a country you would hate to live in. This turned out to be quite a sensible policy - I have a friend who learned Chinese who then had to live in China for several years because that's where his employer wanted him (what with his speaking Chinese and all that...). The UK postings he coveted kept going to non-Chinese speakers.

Oh, to be posted to a dangerous shit-hole, because nobody else in the firm admits to speaking the language.

??

Not saying the whole of China is a dangerous shit-hole, btw. Had moved on to thinking of other languages and regions... Although having said that, I wouldn't personally want to live in China if I didn't have to. I would rather live in Paris.

'Economic Competitiveness and the well being of the middle class: are they mutually exclusive'

The debate at Chatham House tonight. !

I try to avoid China as much as possible. I also try to avoid Paris. The Scandinavian countries, the US and the Netherlands are much nicer. Although I'm developing a soft spot for Austria too.

The worst place I have ever been though is Kiev. And I will be there again in a few weeks (sigh).

there is really nothing new in this "education superclass", and in fact even the most competitive London Day schools are far more diverse and accessible than exclusive boarding schools like Le Rosey in Switzerland or the Philipps Exeter Academy or Eton College or the United World Colleges etc., they've existed for a long time and even thirty years ago much of the global elite was educated at these institutions. London Day schools are becoming more fashionable among the global elite, which is making life for "normal" middle class Londoners very difficult, but I don't think it is going to change anything on a global level. And I also believe vast material wealth can stand in the way of intellectual achievement and ambition.

You don't actually have to change anything on a global level to change lives on a national level though, do you?

Nothing changes on the national level, it's not like you didn't have a massive divide on a national level for the last hundred years already anyway!! It affects Londoners because fees are rising here disproportionately, other than that I don't think it affects anyone living in other parts of the country.

sanam - do you mean school fees? I don't think that day school fees in London are significantly different to those in the rest of the south.

sanam - I think London being a fashionable place for the global elite to invest in property and educate their children has a huge effect on the rest of the country. The whole economy seems to revolve around servicing their financial interests.

Perhaps they should discover Newcastle.

I think the problem isn't London becoming separate. We now live in London. The crap area of London, in a council block, surrounded by other council blocks and where sending your kids to a private school is pretty unthinkable. The rich are moving to very specific area of London and the SE, and those areas are separating themselves off from the rest of the country, but the problem isn't London as a whole, as London has many very rich and very poor areas.

Is it really any different than it always was? In the UK in 1900 there were much more rigid class differences, more old money, harder to move class than now. If this generation of children are likely on the whole to do worse than their children then the downwards social mobility which flows from that will surely allow the children of those currently worse off to move up as others move down.

As said above London is a pretty mixed area and people have often moved around the world. My relatives going back to the 1800s were moving countries. In the 1920s a new wave of them emigrated (US/Canada and one briefly working in India). Then in the 60s one was off in the direction of Australia. I have moved 300 miles or so to where there are jobs (London). I am not sure today it is any different.

What is always with us is that parents want to help, love and care for their children. I find this a very noble motive and to be encouraged rather than some kind of immoral pernicious favouritism.

I don't think people moved around in the past the way that they do, now - unless they were invading and taking over altogether, which obviously did happen from time to time, I don't think the wealthy and powerful would have been permitted to come into the country and buy up what they wanted in a totally free market, as it would have been treading too much on the toes of the existing elite. Today's global elite find it much easier to come in, mess up and move on without risk or consequence than previous elites, which were somewhat tied to their home country and eventually had to face up to their mistakes (eg WW1).

There has also never been quite such a large population of people to cater for whilst resources continue to dwindle, and we have not had quite such a shortage of housing for quite some time and when we did (I presume there was quite a serious shortage in some parts, eg, after the WW2 bombing raids), houses were not so expensive.

Also, people hadn't built up quite such high expectations in the past - now most people have tasted the joys of central heating, for example, they won't happily go back to the days when dying of hypothermia was something an awful lot of the elderly, frail and poor did every winter. Nor will they happily go back to the days when if you were poor and couldn't afford to see a doctor or get essential medicine, you would probably die. And if its suggested that they just ought to get used to the idea, because people lived like that in the past, they won't take kindly to it.

People definitely didn't move around as much and have the opportunity to spend quite so much time in different countries. My father and his family used to have to take the boat back from India - a journey that took months. My DC go to North America for summer camp and jump in a plane on a Friday night to spend the weekend in another European capital.

I think if you go back 100s of years sure not so much easy mobility but certainly better social mobility in the recent past.

?Effect of WW2 women working, people learning trades, the need to move up from a low base in a few years.

Social mobility or the creation of the middle classes started during the industrial revolution. The elite has also always existed they were just different from the ones we have now it's money that gets you into this group not for the want of a better word breeding.
The other interesting thing is that we all move around more than we used to, my in laws have lived in the same house for 60 yrs and my MIL was born two miles away. We in contrast have moved around repeatedly since we got married (we have nomadic tendencies) and not just up the road although we have currently stayed south eastish or at least within an easy commute of the south east. I would cheerfully move again tomorrow and would also leave the south east and return to the deep and darkest West Country or perhaps north.

Yes, we do all move around more than we used to. That's another reason why we have a looming childcare crisis - women now expected to go out to work, people retiring later and having children later meaning grandparents are not going to be a viable childcare option for as many people in the future as they have been, the cost of living and childcare going up, and of course, grandparents often living miles or continents away even if they are young enough to help but old enough not to be working themselves. Back to a world where you either have to employ a retinue of domestic servants, be one, or live in poverty?

My issue with this article is simply the idea of an "education superclass" as if the superrich now have access to some secret super education that others have no access to. There are many ways to obtain education and being surrounded by spoilt superrich offspring of oligarch father with trophy wife mummy isn't actually generally the best recipe for the best education. It sounds very defeatist to claim you or your child doesn't have access to a great education just because you're not a billionaire. A lot of education can be provided at home and through books and through the many excellent state schools.

I really don't fear that the superrich will have a better educated offspring than my children. Yes they'll be richer and have privileges and they'll have an easier life in many aspects, but gaining a better education probably isn't one of the core issues. That's the one area where I strongly believe educated and smart parents can trump rich parents.

There are many ways to obtain education and being surrounded by spoilt superrich offspring of oligarch father with trophy wife mummy isn't actually generally the best recipe for the best education. It sounds very defeatist to claim you or your child doesn't have access to a great education just because you're not a billionaire.

That is not the segment of the population that is creating the "educational superclass".

Hang on. Do you know how many people left Ireland during the potato famine? Also remember how many left the UK to populate much of the US, Canada and Australia. I think there has been a huge amount of emigration in the past, starting with the fact we all began in Africa and covered the planet from there. Yes, it is easier to get on a plane nowadays but I do not agree there is more movement around the planet now than ever. Anyway that's a slightly minor issue on the thread.

More importantly is how can each person do the best for their children rather than just saying we know our place and we can never improve your position because of XYZ obstacle, isn't life unfair - they say.

That's a separate issue. Permanent migration - settling in a new community and integrating - is quite different in content and purpose to people who regularly travel all over the planet every year and have homes in more than one country.

This is a slightly bizarre thread. My DDs went to one of these terribly elitist schools and their peers attended others. To my knowledge there has only been one rich oligarchs dd in any of their schools, Anna Abromavitch at Godolphin and she was notorious because of her oddity. Far more common were the middle class parents in their battered Volvo who had worked hard to raise the cash to get the opportunity for their clever daughter, and indeed those who didn't have the cash and were there via bursaries. Yes a sprinkling of the offspring of city lawyers, bankers and hedge fund / venture capitalists, London is a financial centre, but also teachers, engineers, IT specialists, medical supplies salesmen, a taxi driver. Plus since we are speaking about the global elite, Polish and Lithuanian families, Kenyan and Ugandan Asians, Tamils, Singapore Chinese.......

And I have to say the mix wasn't much different in my DDs international primary. Expats are not by any means all rich bankers and oligarchs.

Taking your DCs to live somewhere like China is a mind broadening adventure but not one open only to rich bankers and oligarchs, and yes my DDs do think of themselves as living in a global world but since one is going to be a research Scientist specialising in cell biologist and the other a teacher I don't think the rich bankers and oligarchs need to worry about the competition.......

The bizarre threads are the most fun, though.

We'll just have to wait and see what your research scientist and teacher children do to educate their children, Shootingatpigeons. Will they want private education for their children (if so, why) and will they be able to afford it, what sacrifices will they be willing to make in order to be able to do so, and in what way will it affect their career and life choices as they get older?

ElizabethJonesMartin - you are describing the migration of the poor, not the flitting about of the rich. Now, I know you would like to go back to a world where lots of people are so poor they would leave their families and trek across the world, because you think that sorts the sheep from the goats, but other people don't have your clarity of vision and would rather avoid potato famines in the first place.