Michael Gove proposes imposing VAT on private school fees

[OCSockOrphanage]

In an Op Ed piece for The Times today (Fri 24 Feb), teaching's Nemesis suggests that school fees should be subject to VAT at 20% so the revenue can be ploughed into improving state provision.

Link

Opinions? I reckon there will be a few?

I spend a crazy amount on school fees - despite 2 small scholarships, for three teens it's already £84k a year which involves considerable planning. If Gove wants a sudden influx of children abandoning independent schools and flooding into state schools, go ahead and make the fees even higher.

God help us that's what I say to my partner they need a qualification that they can use in other parts of the world.

Day school fees at sixth form (Y12 and 13) at the not stellar school DS attends are £5k per term. So £6K if VAT were to be added. It's not insignificant, even if you could just about manage. And, it would encourage further gaming in the tax code.

Newt, he hasn't thought it through as far as that, as far as I can see.

Gove's inconsistencies are mind-boggling. Parts of the rest of the article appear to be an argument for maintaining the status quo re comprehensives/new grammars

Yep, as was his previous article slating UTCs (selection at 14).

He's being anti-grammar. Possibly regretting abandoning his principles to suck up to Theresa May?

I'm not really a fan of private education, but parents who sent their children private are already paying taxes for the state education system, why should they have to pay twice?

OCSockOrphanage I disagree. Gove is an attention seeker with very little understanding of what makes education work. His suggestions are not new and are unworkable. His tenure in the Department for Education did shake things up, but very little of what he did was truly of value. Most of it was about assuming that all children are like he was as a boy and would do best in a grammar school environment with plenty of exams from the age of 6. This is simply not the case. One of the pleasures of teaching is discovering the breadth of different personalities, talents and interests and how these play out in your own classroom.

There are plenty of ways of assessing the quality of a school without testing 6-7 year olds and, in reforming GCSEs and A Levels did nothing to address the problems of very narrow curriculae with restrictive mark schemes that stifle the truly intellectual child who finds jumping through hoops boring. I say that with almost 2 decades of experience teaching in both the state and top independent sector teaching both A Levels and the IB. Paying fees and home schooling are, unfortunately, the only ways of bowing out of those aspects of what the Department for Education dictates that a parent might disagree with. The independent sector is also important for providing diversity and for keeping the state on it toes in terms of its own educational provision.

The reality is that successive governments have enjoyed giving independent schools veiled threats, such as making them jump through hoops to keep their charitable status when most have been deeply involved in their local communities and in public benefit for centuries. For example, suggesting but not clarifying that bursaries should be de-coupled from scholarships has resulted in swathes of the middle classes whose children are scholarship standard thinking that they cannot afford the fees and are probably not poor enough for a bursary.

If Gove was really interested in fostering choice for parents he would accept that independent schools are part of the history and fabric of this country and think carefully about how to ensure they remain accessible to British tax payers. This might involve looking at a list of professionals who used to be able to afford school fees and how that compares with now and asking these schools why their fee increases are so out of control and what they intend to do to make sure that they retain a local non-bursary assisted clientele. Some aspects of running a school have become more expensive (teacher pension contributions for example) but my suspicion is that the real reason is an arms race in facilities, the comfort of knowing that places could be filled by international students and that grandparents are currently helping. I even heard a bursar saying that Osborne's relaxation on pension annuities would help the private school sector. That is not a sustainable source of income and is not an appropriate way to make decisions about affordability. I think there is a lot to be said for a university-style approach of National and International fees at independent schools, and for charging International students fees at state schools as Australia and New Zealand do.

The best thing that could happen is that our education system becomes less socially and economically segregated, so if this results in more parents taking their kids out of private schools then good.

"he would accept that independent schools are part of the history and fabric of this country"

Yes - they create and entrench inequality and this is divisive and unfair.

There is no moral argument for the private schools.

Wouldn't a lot of parents with VAT registered businesses claim back the VAT?

On what basis?

@scaevola - I'm not saying that vat is a luxury tax. I am saying that private education is not a necessity and so there is no moral argument for it to be exempt from vat.

This is a treacherous debate to weigh into but my sympathy only runs so far and it is high time that folk spoke out against the gradual wasting of state funded services in favour of privately funded services.

Exactly

@minifingerz -exactly

I'd expect the number of pupils in private schools to rapidly plummet if this happened. I can see that causing difficulties in the already oversubscribed state schools.

This thread needs, and is missing, the input of regular posters on education. Please, weigh in hard

No, no it doesn't because this is why I don't post much in education, it's the same few anti private school posters who are drawn to these threads. It puts me and others off from posting.

Let's have some fresh faces

Vat is a tax on luxury goods.

My friend has a boy in private school. There was no state place allocated to him. My friend can't afford the fees so her parents help her out. I'd like Gove to think how that boy's place is a "luxury". It's paid for out of desperation due to no state school places being available.

well I also hope gove has thousands more state school places available for those who cannot afford the fee increases that slapping vat on would cause!

Plus huge numbers of people who have kids on the autistic spectrum (seen this loads on MN) send the child private in the hope that a smaller and quieter classroom will make school bearable. Has gove got a shit load of state school places waiting for those kids? And some juicy SEN budget top up money growing on trees in dreamland?

What about armed forces kids who the govt pays for yo go to boarding school. Does the govt want to pay 20% more?

I think gove is a bit ignorant. He just thinks private schools= rich toffs. Not in reality.

He's completely thinking through the issue through a London-centric lens. Top private schools in London will still be oversubscribed with parents able to absorb a 20% increase in fees.

The small non-selective independent in a rural area isn't going to struggle. With wages stagnant for so long, it's going to be too difficult to cope with such a big increase.

If the tax went ahead, I think that it will lead the Tories to overturn the class limit in Reception/KS1 and spending per pupil to decrease further.

If private education is taxed then businesses offering tuition would have to start charging VAT which in turn is going to lead to a nation which studies less.

Poor Gove, no matter what you suggest PM May is not going to let you back in especially as they are still struggling to get the knife out of Boris' back!

If VAT was imposed on school fees the losers will be the squeezed middle classes for whom an extra couple of thousand a year on fees will be a deal breaker. But the super rich, the privileged, the ones who have money who are part of elite and who need the deep and entrenched inequalities in our society and who have influence over so much of people's lives through their connections, who are cheerfully stumping up £36k+ PA for one child and probably have two or three will effortlessly absorb the increase.
Let's face it the anti private ed brigade on here are not aiming their vitriol and Mr and Mrs MC who sacrifice things, downsize their homes to send their two kids to a good solid private day school because they're disappointed with the state school they were offered. Their dislike is aimed at those sending their children to a handful of elite schools, those who have never even considered state ed, it's never even been on their radar, where paying large fees is as much a part of their lives as owning four or five luxuary homes, taking expensive holidays three of four times a year and owning a couple of £100k cars. For them VAT on fees will make no difference what so ever and the privileged education their children will receive will continue unaffected.

I can't see the article as it's behind a paywall, but assuming what those upthread have said is accurate, it's a terrible idea which will have negative repercussions for the state and private sectors.

Could someone please post a screenshot of the article for those of us who can't get behind the paywall?

People seem to forget that Gove's a backbencher, no one gives a crap what he says anymore.

What private school parents should be concerned about is that the actual people with the power are saying that private schools should have their charitable status removed if they don't sponsor new grammar free schools.

Gist of the article is here:

www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/gove-private-schools-are-welfare-junkies

And this was the photo that accompanied it.

I see I was not wrong about the anti-grammar bit:

twitter.com/Samfr/status/835252749151383552

He would be a good ally in this fight but really, does he adopt a new set of principles every time he changes his clothes?