Shouldnt equal education be available to everyone?

[angell84]

I have just returned to the U.K. after a very long period abroad, and I am shocked at the school system in the U.K. I lived in another country where equal education was available to everyone.

Why do we have comprehensive, and independant and fee paying schools in the U.K? Why is better education given to those with money who can afford it? Shouldn't equal education be available to everyone?
The discrimination in education - is shocking in the U.K.

Op, the class system is not rigid. You are making some incorrect assumptions. I am a single mum, my ds is at a private school. I come from a free school meals family where there was certainly no privilege.
I have been lucky in some ways and I have worked very hard but there is no class advantage and no privilege involved.

Sorry but your sweeping generalisations are incorrect.

@deep501 some one right above you has just said that state schools are very equal in Scotland, and last time I checked, Scotland wasn't a communist country.

I live in a Scottish city and 40% of children here go to private schools. As opposed to less than 10% of the UK as an average.

It is frustrating that you won’t answer what superior country you are from. We can’t really have a proper debate when we don’t know what we are comparing it to. And calling people racist whilst saying how superior your country is is rather hypocritical.

For what it’s worth my household is high earning, certainly in the top 5% and we don’t send our children to private school. We want them to grow up in a community and not be shipped out away for their education. I am perfectly happy with their state education. My high earning dh is state educated. I am largely state educated apart from a spell at international private schools in my primary school years. So yes not the only country with private education.

This post is like an argument with Diane Abbot. Completely nonsensical.
If I really loathed a country this much, I don’t think I’d be wanting to stay for very long...
I’m sure there are plenty other less ‘rigid’ countries you could choose to live....

@happycamper11 that's exactly right. Scotland is not communist as evidenced by the fact that people seem to have a choice. It did not get to equal state schools by abolishing private schools either. State schools are equal, yet 40% in your city go to private schools as you say. What does that tell you?

And for what it’s worth here too...we are not top bracket income by a long shot, but do choose to pay for private education, as well as healthcare. On top of taxes we already pay towards the state alternatives.
Reason? Because living in a highly populated SE affluent area, our schools are seriously underfunded, and our hospitals and GP surgeries are overcrowded. Our choice.

@deep501 I had a bold failure... the first paragraph was a quote from OP. The bold often annoyingly disappears when you press post

Also I'd say that state schools are far from equal here. People lie and/or temporarily rent to get in to the catchment of a school just a mile from their own catchment one.

@happycamper11 That sort of lack of integrity & ethics from parents is sad to see. There should be checks and balances to prevent this sort of misuse. Forget getting children the "best free education", firstly the focus should be on teaching children basic values. I wonder what values gets instilled in kids who see their parents fake an address to get seats.

Even if the schools are all equal some children will be at an advantage within it. Children of highly successful parents will probably be advantaged in a similar field due to a mixture of nature & nurture. Think of footballers & athletes, eg Andy Murray, his brother & mother, Ian Wright & his family. We see the same with acting dynasties and musicians. Similarly lawyers where there is a huge benefit to having a retentive memory or scientists who grasp principles quickly. The equal education disappears as soon as you throw children into the mix.

Maybe the dream is to have an appropriate education for each child so they each achieve the most they can and feel accomplished.

I don't understand the 'surprise' at the fact there is private schools in the UK from the OP, it's not a new thing as OP has pointed out themselves, and OP states that they are originally from here. Do you not think that you had the opportunity to move abroad to live is unfair to those who can't? Why should you have been able to do so then?

That's a whole other topic. @deep501 I'm just pointing out that education provision in Scotland is far from equal. You just need to look at the exam results between schools in the wealthiest vs those in the most deprived areas to see that.

@TitianaTitsling Now we should take the State to task for not providing "equal live abroad opportunities"? Then, let's begin with "Undo BrExit campaign" as that has taken away the right of Brits to live and work freely within the EU!

Which country were you living in? Was there equality in everything or just education? Healthcare, housing etc?

How far do you take this? Let's say you ban private schools. Do you also ban private tutors? Private sports academies? Private music centres? Summer camps? Wealthy people have more money to spend on everything, not just education.

The system of not setting year groups and just sticking them in classes for age doesn’t work out well for the bottom or the top. They go at the pace of the middle and if you can’t keep up you can’t keep up. That’s equal but not fair. Is that what your advocating?
You get 100 hours of maths a year, if it’s not enough to learn the quadratic equations you can’t get any more, if you learned it after 5 hours you sit there and keep quiet for 95.
Education isn’t manufacturing you can’t stick the same parts in and get uniform results. My child is being failed but the education system but it wouldn’t be helped by abolishing the current system. It would be helped by funding schools better (which has happened in the past). Do you have an education background op?

deep but under OPs utopia, the state would fully fund the move, provide accommodation etc etc and it would be all equal like pp said a Gilead.

It isn’t just about how good the school is either. I have friends that are teachers in deprived areas. They are amongst the best funded schools around, their teaching is excellent, the kids get all sorts of stuff thrown at them. In contrast schools in nice middle class villages can easily coast and are often have the least amount of funding ( no pupil premium) but they will still get better results.
Private schools aren’t that amazing really. They just have a different cohort.

I went to a non selective secondary school and my education was patchy.
some of my teachers were very good, others bored and the rest didn't seem to know what they were doing.
There is another factor you are forgetting.
the children that attend the school. I lost count of how many of my lessons were interrupted by the behaviour of class mates. For many reasons they did not want to be there and caused as much trouble as they could to stop the class, but it wasn't just them it affected.
I moved to a different school for the last two years of secondary and there was a difference. Still the disruptive element but on a much smaller scale as most of those had already been kicked out of another school. So they could not risk playing up so much.
But still lessons got messed up.
My eldest child goes to a secondary in London with over 1000 girls on the books huge step from her one form primary but she has adapted. It was selective but only on faith & language. The girls still sit an entrance exam as they are required to be banded into three ability groups. The school has to prove that they have offered places to no more than 25% of the highest group, 25% from lower and 50% from middle.
They are extremely strict and girls do get consequences for wrong uniform, mobile phones on in school, wrong books & late etc. They have clear boundaries and all of them excel and if the school do not feel they are meeting their personal targets they quickly step in to support them to do so.
this effort by the school is reflected in their exam results and how many apply to go to the school.
I never had any one to one support from my teachers it took my first boss to tell me I was at least partially dyslexic.
The system cannot cope with number of kids esp around London as more houses are being built but not more schools. Having good private schools in an area can help the others it allows those that feel they can afford/want to send their children to a private school to reduce the pressure on others around them. Many private schools work with state schools to help their students - my youngest child has just benefited from this. A year of challenging classes, experiences they would not have had and excellent exam results.

Private schools are not an option for all, but they are not the big demon others make them out to be either.

I agree in principle but there are few countries without segregation in education by wealth. Interestingly Barbados, Austria and Estonia all do well when compared globally and have very limited private education.

For a comprehensive system to work properly all children need to attend state schools. Unfortunately, the strongest and most accurate indicator of future success is parental influence. A fully comprehensive system would not be balanced because there would be selection based on house prices giving very different experiences between, say, Winchester or Esther and Great Yarmouth or Morecambe.

It would mean bussing children to get full integration and I’m not convinced that’s a good thing. Until parents revert to supporting schools in maintaining standards and setting rules, many state school teachers will have to continue to battle to get reasonably acceptable behaviour.

I agree with you, knowledge is supposed to be the great equaliser, our schools that most people use cus they have no choice are just designed to create docile factory workers back in the victorian era, while the rich children kept being privately tutored at home and it's just evolved to what it is now, over sized classrooms with teachers spread thin and just trying to hit pointless guidelines or attendance numbers so they can keep begging for money off the government, it;s horrible to see

@CherryPavlova .. That is a select group of countries with small populations. There are other countries as well, but have you seen the side effects that come with "free state education" even in small population countries? There is a cost to the individual, family and society that is not openly evident.

Below are some quotes from the same top 10 article you probably looked at.

"However, the school system also has a reputation as being a pressure cooker, putting students under a lot of stress at a young age."

"From secondary onwards students are separated by ability."

Like you say, it becomes difficult when parents don't want to play their part and instead expect the state to provide education equally and for free.

I'm a teacher and would absolutely love for private and selective schools to be abolished. Should add faith schools to that too, despite working in a CE.
The inner city primary where I work is situated between three private schools within 5-10 minutes walking distance. We occasionally get invited to events at their schools in order to help them maintain their charitable status. The difference is stark and it upsets me so much that my pupils, through no fault of their own, are unable to access the kind of experiences that their peers, through no merit of their own, are enjoying day to day. Also, in an affluent city like ours, a disproportionate number of children from high income families attend the many private schools clustered within a mile radius of the city centre. This means that state primaries like ours do not benefit from having a broad range of socioeconomic backgrounds represented in our school community, despite being located right on the doorstep of some of the most expensive residential properties in the country.
Grr.

"Concentrate on getting church schools abolished rather than worrying about private schools."

Huh?

Why scrapping one and not the other? In my books, they are both the same, i.e. private - for members only!

And OP, please get real. There's absolutely nothing equal on this earth. Look no further than your own self. Raise both your hands in front of your face. What do you see? Fingers and thumbs. Some short; some long. Some fat, and some thin. Some strong, and some not so strong. So you have inequality even in your own person.

There's nothing to complain about the British education system whatsoever. Everything is there for you - if you want it, go get it! But please don't expect it to fall on your lap. It's apparent you refuse to reveal which great country you've just returned from that has a fantastic educational system. But I'm thinking more about children from under- and/or developing countries and the education (or the complete absence of it) that they get or don't get before I even think of the British system. Just thank your lucky stars you have access to British education.

@adulthuman but how would abolishing private and selective schools provide access to these opportunities if they were abolished?