Private schools - should they scrap their bursaries?

[SomeGuy]

I was interested to read this report from the Charity Commission.

Basically they tested five schools to decide whether they were charitable or not. Fees ranged from £6k to £15k per year.

The definition of charitable is a new one, since 2008. It is here.

The key criterion is

"F3 Principle 2b Where benefit is to a section of the public, the opportunity to benefit must not be unreasonably restricted"

in particular

"F10. Restrictions based on ability to pay any fees charged

Charities can charge for the services or facilities they provide. They can also charge fees that more than cover the cost of those services or facilities, provided that the charges are reasonable and necessary in order to carry out the charity?s aims, for example in maintaining or developing the service being provided. However, where, in practice, the charging restricts the benefits to only those who can afford to pay the fees charged, this may result in the benefits not being available to a sufficient section of the public.

...
The fact that the charitable facilities or services will be charged for, and will be provided mainly to people who can afford to pay the charges, does not necessarily mean that the organisation does not have aims that are for the public benefit; however,
an organisation that excluded people from the opportunity to benefit because of their inability to pay any fees charged would not have aims that are for the public benefit.

Therefore, where charities do charge fees, people who are unable to pay those fees must, nevertheless, be able to benefit in some material way related to the charity?s aims. This does not mean that charities have to offer services for free. Nor does it mean that people who are unable to pay the fees must actually benefit, in the sense that they choose to take up the benefit. They must not be excluded from the opportunity to benefit, whether or not they actually do so."

Basically they have determined that poor people must benefit in some way from private schools in order to have charitable status.

Of the five schools assessed, means-tested bursaries were advertised at four. The percentage of fee income going towards bursaries was: 14%, 10%, 5%,

so it would make sense for schools with charitable status, to be able to opt out of being a charity and to run themselves like any other business, but at the moment they don't have that option.

The % of children educated privately is so small that I think the public purse could probably manage to absorb them.

Spending per pupil is £6,600/year in the state sector. There are 569,080 private school pupils, so the net saving to the public purse is £3.75 billion.

Quite a lot of money at the moment I would think, about 2p on income tax.

I think it is outrageous that private schools have charitable status

Quite possibly, but they aren't allowed to change.

The government could say "the purpose of private schools is to benefit rich parents, they should not be charities", and then make provisions for them to convert to companies.

What they have instead done is said "The purpose of private schools is to benefit rich parents, but if they make a token gesture to help the poor, we'll let them off".

To me this doesn't seem terribly rational. Either the schools are charities set up to help the poor, in which case I guess they should stop charging fees altogher and take donations, or they are not.

In my county, over 20% of children are educated privately. I think that probably is quite a significant number.

Which county is that wicked?

In Oz they say that 36% of DCs are privately educated!

I THINK you get a tax refund sort of thing if you opt privately as the Aussies feel that you ARE taking a burden off the state sector.

However, private school in Oz is generally a different beast to in the UK: The biggest provider is the Catholic church. Their fees are low (free by the 4th child!). Religious groups make up the majority of other private schools (from Lutheran to Christian Fundamentalist). They are in general significantly cheaper than the UK option, which is why many more DCs go. This has a couple of effects: 'Private' isn't seen as exclusive though of course you will always find parents have ways of demonstrating their wealth: 1950s Enid Blyton style uniforms, bumper stickers ostensibly supporting their DC's school sport BUT always with the school's name! ('SCEGS Rowing'). Standards in private schools vary enormously. Some are rubbish!

There IS a thriving Old Boy/Girl network (never believe an Aussie who tells you how egalitarian their society is!) and certain 'school groups' USED to dominate professions!

But the biggie really IS that a private education, when a third of the population 'enjoy' the same, doesn't confer upon you massive advantage like it does here. You are one of many in Oz, one of the few here. Private schools largely merely educate (with the exception of the 'names' schools!). Here, they appear to hold far greater sway than the raw number of pupils would imply.

No, MY gripe with the whole 'charity status' thing is that the loss of potential income to the government which would go to benefit us all- so that privileged DCs can buy their privilege cheaper. DCs in private schools get better exam results than those in state schools, by and large. An identically IQ'ed DC will almost certainly do better privately.

There are a limited number of places in the good universities. These are filled not necessarily by the best but by the better coached. These degrees confer the possibility of wealth, power and privilege on their holders. The 'system' self perpetuates.

There actually seem to be too many rather than too few university places.

If you're after social justice, dump the mantra that everyone, even the academically challenged, must go to university and spend the money saved on big bursaries for very clever working class children to go to the best universities. Oh, and give them a six-month/summer foundation course first if they come from sink schools so that they start university on the same level as those who've gone to good schools.

Send the rest, ie, the less bright to further education or vocational courses in their nearest towns and cities so they can live at home and not get themselves into debt.

Absolutely agree with Ampere. Well said.

"Spending per pupil is £6,600/year in the state sector."

Where is this figure from SomeGuy? It seems a bit high.

There is a world of difference between everyone must go to university and everyone must have the same opportunity to apply.

Agree with Abraid about too many going these days. But there is a disproportionate amount of privately educated children getting the places at 'top' universities, who probably have the same IQ as many of their state school counterparts. This argument always goes round in circles though, because presumably that is what people are paying for in the first place. It's just getting people to admit that's it's not fair which is the sticking point. Lots of people don't care if it's not fair, simply not interested.

I thought it was about £5000 per child spent on state education.

I think like any figure, it depends on what calculation you use. This article blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/5317216/State_schools_cost_just_as_much_as_independent_ones/ claims the cost is £9000 per child per year! , but it does include a link to the DM and it's not clear where they get the figure from.

But I did think it was somewhere round the £5000/£6000 a year mark.

£5k per year was what the tories said in 2005 seeker. That was the amount of the mooted 'voucher' scheme, which may or may not have been an accurate assessment.

I know some people do think the costs are much higher - a quick google found the ISC claim it's as much as £9k a year per child when you include the costs of all the red tape. Article here

I don't really have a problem with the government clarifying what the charitable benefit expected from charitable schools is. I also think providing around 10% bursaries seems a fair level. I do think it needs to be phased in though to prevent some schools going under and because it's never been clarified before what charitable benefit should be. Historically, education in itself was seen as charitable and schools need time to move away from this model.

Converting away from charitable status isn't really an option as the assets all have to go to charitable causes, so I can't see how that would work unless there was a legislative change exempting schools from this for a limited window of time.

While schools don't have the choice to convert, individual consumers always have the choice to move their children into state schools.

x-post with cossete.

No they should keep them.
My friend, unemployed, husband unemployed, has their son at a private school on 80% bursary plus scholarship for sports as he is brilliant at sports.

I am sure that the millionaire parents at the school can well afford to subsidise him and frankly, they should. This is a very effective use of rich helping the poor that hasn't been through 400 levels of government rubbish thus reducing the available cash to the poor by 80% which is what seems to happen in local LEA...a lot of state schools budget never gets to schools at all.

But surely that's an example of advantage being heaped upon a child who ALREADY HAS 'advantage' as in a specific talent ('brilliant at sport') thus perhaps is in LESS need of the leg-up that an 'ordinary' DC from a less well off family?

Personally an idea I have is that IF bursaries are to be offered, the school gets no say in who they take!

And I agree pumpkin re 'not fair'. Sadly those who MIGHT be in a position to redress the 'unfair' balance are those who are, via their own DC's charitable status private school, getting the raw financial advantage of perpetuating this scheme.

A simple test would be to ask the 'man in the street' whether HE/SHE thinks the idea of 'Charity' and the tax-breaks therein were designed to prop up private schools!

I think people (charities commission included) are confusing 'widening admissions from children in poverty' with 'widening participation'.

Offering 100% bursaries doesn't mean you will suddenly get lots of children from sink estates applying and being accepted to schools.
100% bursaries mean 'skint' middle class parents will apply, and more than likely be accepted, because their children are already the 'type' the schools are looking for.

When the government made museums free, there was lots of talk of children from disadvantaged backgrounds suddenly having access to art and culture which was previously closed to them. And admissions went through the roof, which was initially used as proof positive that it worked.
But when the figures were studied in more detail, it wasn't disadvantaged children who were going. It was middle class children who had always gone, going more often because it was free.

The same thing would happen with schools... I know lots of ostensibly middle class parents where parents have got low paid jobs or low household incomes.
They would love their children to go to a private school, were money no object, but it isn't an option.

If/when 100% bursaries become commonplace, those are the parents who will be first in the queue, and because their children play musical instruments, talk with nice RP accents and have impeccable table manners, they will be the children which get offered the places.

Why? Because they aren?t going to scare the existing parents, stand out like a sore thumb to be picked on by other children, or upset the status quo.

Of course it would be lovely if it was the children who have shitty home lives who get the chance to live away from home and have outstanding educations, but that is just never going to happen, because the parents who are paying the fees to subsidise those places don?t want their children being educated alongside those children.

I think ampere made a good point earlier, about schools perhaps not having the choice on who gets the bursary. So maybe boarding schools should take some children from care homes for example?

Cosette,
That is all very well and good, but completely misses the point that other parents will be funding these places.
Most parents chose to send their children to a private school because they don't like the state schools on offer, and often this is because of issues like a lack of discipline, children who don't have a respect for authority etc within those state schools.
If the very children who parents don't want their children educated alongside are suddenly sent to private schools, how long do you think the schools will last?

I'm sure within a term or two, most children will have been withdrawn and sent to schools without bursaries, or internaional schools.
Which achieves nothing more than leaving teachers out of a job and any remaining children requiring a school place at very short notice.

Unless you are suggesting that private schools have some sort of magic bullet which can suddenly flip children with emotional problems into model citizens who will fully integrate into an alien environment, in which case, let them keep their charity status, and get extra government funding...

So if you could find a way of them getting rid of their charitable status, then they could run as businesses and there's be no chance of any nasty state school types getting in on bursaries. And they could continue to teach the cost of everything and the value of nothing.......

other parents are already funding some bursaries, and as you mentioned, these tend to go to middle class families and don't benefit the truly impoverished. I don't think schools can work miracles of course, but I assumed there would be some children in care who would benefit from being given places as boarders. Children with real emotional problems probably wouldn't benefit, but I like to think that there are at least some children in care to whom it would make a difference.

I think if there were only a couple, then it would not be a problem.

Maybe I'm being too idealistic, but I have 2 DDs as daygirls in a private school, and I would be happy to see them joined by a couple of girls in care. Perhaps for every "middle class" bursary there could be a "very poor" bursary.

Without wanting to base an argument on reality tv (which I'm about to do..!) did you see a C4 programme a few years ago where a boy from a sink estate in Peckham was sent to a catholic boys boarding school?

He was followed for a few terms by the tv cameras and did a very good job integrating in the school. He made friends, he did well in his Latin class, he started playing rugby.

But the problems happened when he went home in the holidays. He went back to his sink estate, where drugs were rife, where aspirations were minimal. When he arrived back in the school each September, he had problems readjusted to school life.

Eventually, he was expelled for bringing drugs back to school and returned to his local school, where he was picked on because of his time at boarding school and eventually dropped out.

Now I'm not going to try and generalise with this - lots and lots of schools have drug problems, often because of 'nice' boys, but the school concluded that this sort of social experiment just didn't work. It didn't benefit the child and it didn't benefit the other pupils.

So to take this to a logical conclusion... The girls in care go to your DDs school, they are there for a couple of terms, and they then go back to their parents. Parents don't like having their children going to a 'posh' school and are generally unsupportive of education (enough so that their children were taken away in the first place).
They are duly returned to their local comp, where they have missed out on a chunk of school and friendship groups.

Who has benefitted from this situation?

I didn't see that C4 programme, but did read about it, and yes a real shame that it didn't work, and that it ended badly.

The holidays are of course a problem, and I suppose depending on the circumstances of the individual child they'd either go to the parents, or perhaps back to the home they were in previously - where maybe they'd get better support.

Anyway, I am prepared to concede it's not a realistic idea, but would love to hear of somewhere it has worked.

Having worked with children in care for all my adult life I can say with very little uncertainty that boarding school would not be a great place for these kids.
They need a home and someone to care for them properly, not Latin lessons and a part time house master.

Hmmmm. So what you're saying is that the best thing is to leave private schools to the privileged classes. I would be delighted to do that - somebody has to be the international Fives Champions after all! - IF we could find a way of stopping those same privileged ones from occupying all the top jobs, filling the top universities and ruling the country! The Old Boy Network is alive and well.