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.

There is lot wrong with the OPs assertions:

1. The majority of students attending Oxbridge are state school students not privately educated students
2. All Russel group universities provide contextual offers to disadvantaged pupils
3. Historically, certain professions have been dominated by the privately educated but that’s changed. The majority of new MPs for instance entering parliament are state educated now rather than privately educated

Posted too early

1. Top private schools aren’t only for the rich. Many have 20 percent of students in bursaries and are raising funds to be completely needs-blind

1. The gap between state schools is more significant than the gap between private and state regarding impact

OP have you just swallowed some of Labour’s seminal texts on abolition of private schools? It sounds like you have. Look what happened to them in the recent GE

The idea of a fully statist education system was abhorrent to most families.

Banning private schools isn't the solution. In areas where there are good state schools, private schools tend to shut down. There's no need for them when state schools are good.

@kenandbarbie : clean, concise and a free market explanation! That should settle it then.

Thank you @deep501. Aspiration is available to all, both rich & poor..and everything in between. Whichever way we choose to go about it.
We have and are about to again, turned down the choice of two top performing grammar schools; because the private alternatives we looked at, offered something beyond the basics, and we felt our children would be happier there..not because we felt they would do 'better'. These decisions have certainly not been easy, and we've had to compromise so much financially this far..but that is something we feel quite entitled to do. We pay our taxes towards schools we don't use, and spend our hard-earned money towards choosing what we feel is best for our children. That has nothing to do with elitism or unfairness..and everything to do with autonomy and choice. A choice that we have enabled for ourselves, through sheer hard work and long-term aspirations.
I have also known families, who have sent their children to our daughter's school by way of bursary. So these opportunities are not just open to those who can afford it. I guess some people just see what they want to see...got to have somebody to blame for their own huge shoulder chips of doom and discontent...

@Ratrace123 - Let's not forget the genius counterargument from the wondrous Diane Abbot..in response to her being challenged on why she was suddenly anti-private schools..having privately educated her own. 'Em Er Em Er...wellll that was then, and this is now.....'
There is really no point arguing with people who can't seem to grasp rational reality beyond the tip of their own nose....

What a bonkers OP.

They bang on about the "poor" not being able to pay for education. If 93% of people in the UK are state educated, that's an awful lot of poor people around, including me!

It's one of those OPs who keeps on posting links and refusing to engage with any dialogue. Boring.

Not really sure what you are suggesting OP. A communist state? Because in any other society, you will have those with more and those with less. Bam all private schools? The wealthy will pay for tutoring? Ban tutoring? Now you are descending into the realms of a communist society.

You are a fool OP if you think that the poor are not discriminated against in every nation of the world. People of means will get a better education in every country, even those without fee-paying schools, by dint of living in nicer areas, affording more gone resources, being better educated parents themselves.
I know of 1 European country that has selective education for the most able children regardless of background... but since the collapse of communism, I am fairly sure even that can be manipulated by wealth now.
2/5 of the world do not get an education- because of poverty. Look at the UN figures on this.
In the UK all children are able to access free education up to age 18(higher for those with SEND). That is far, far superior to most of the rest of the world.

Did you live in a communist state previously OP?

Really - go back to moaning about how the UK is more racist than Australia/Canada or how you want a man who will start your car for you because all Irish men are unchivalrous mummy's boys. You'll still be as ill-informed, but it makes it easier for other posters to identify you rather than indulging your sophomoric whims and only realising too late.

Ah, so angell84 = when valentine's day becomes about ur daughter and not u?

Did you live in a communist state previously OP?

Based on a previous poster's detective work, I think the OP lives or was living in the US.

Based on a previous poster's detective work, I think the OP lives or was living in the US.

Do you think the OP realises that a higher percentage of children attend private schools in the US that in the UK? (10% v 7%).

@EntropyRising i saw some links from OP from Aussie press so guessing OP was Down Under.

If it was the US, I do not think OP has a leg to stand on with his arguments about equal and free education to all. The disparity in state schools vs. private is pretty stark there. More so, even in between state schools in different zip codes (levels of affluence), how about fixing that first! Also in the New World, if he expressed these leftist desires he would have been laughed out of the country!

Is it's Aus, i do see statistics about 40% private school attendance there as well.

In short, I think OP is a disgruntled soul who stirred up a random discussion and has just walked away leaving us to continue to debate.

Well if OP has lived in the US, she surely knows all about Utopian living. All my US cousins have been privately educated..and some college fees are on quite another level.
Really I’m beginning to think OP must have fallen off a fluffy white cloud passing over the UK...and has had the awful misfortune of having landed..

@deep501 That’s correct too...I also have a lot of family down under...and they have a three tier system there. Fully state....semi-state (mainly church affiliated schools which have state funding and low level fees) and fully private..which is more akin to here. So yes, another modern Utopia of choice

We have chosen to send our children to private secondary schools. They attend state primaries. We are not mega rich, at all.

The problem is, the state system as is stands is also ‘unfair.’ You will never equalise education, because even if private schools were banned, as they do now, state schools would still wildly vary.

There are some state schools that are excellent, well above private schools in terms of academic success. I have several friends that have opted for outstanding state schools despite having places at private. But is that ‘fair’? They have the money to have bought houses in catchment areas for these outstanding schools that would be way beyond the reach of many people.

Even if you made secondary school a complete lottery, whereby every child in x area was put into a hat with x schools, it would still be completely unequal. Teachers, location, cohort, whether you have a group of motivated kids etc all matter.

I am very much of the view that private school is NOT a ‘better’ education. For some of my friends, attending a private, but not especially good, school has been a disaster.

So, advanced Search shows this poster is from Ireland. You know Ireland- where everybody has to pay several hundreds of Euros every year to receive education
Poor children don't suffer at all under the Irish system!

Oh, she has no children either...

@posterAutumnnightsaredrawingin that sums up the reality very well.

However, is buying a house in the right catchment area and getting your kid into the outstanding state school the end game for children's future? They still have to cope, perform and make use of the opportunities.

It's sad that many parents seem to take utmost pressure on themselves and DC to get them into outstanding state schools. It's not like that sets kids up for life. It does save parents secondary school tuition, but kids still need to cope and perform to hold their own in a competitive environment isn't it?

It is a marathon and not a sprint, conquering state school admissions in secondary by faking an address does not solve life.

I was at a book club here in the U.K, and a man that was present bragged about what school he went to, and looked down his nose at some of the other people in the group, who went to lesser schools
I remember looking at him with incredulity, thinking "you are a man in your forties, who cares what school you went to"

Were you in N Ireland? People here are obsessed with what school you went to When a younger relative went to university in Scotland he reported back to his parents with horror that no one wore their school hoody or school scarf, and no one even asked what school you went to. And the parents were telling everyone about how awful and backwards it was over there and no one had any sense of identity.

I was at a book club here in the U.K, and a man that was present bragged about what school he went to, and looked down his nose at some of the other people in the group, who went to lesser schools
I remember looking at him with incredulity, thinking "you are a man in your forties, who cares what school you went to"

I hope you told him that his boorish behaviour was really quite common.

(If this actually happened)

Excuse me, @ursulapandress?

I think OP you need to go and spend some time in your local schools.

Yes the education system is flawed, it’s flawed because people are all different and want different things from life. Some kids get the best education and still leave without GCSEs. Some attend sing schools and leave with A*’s

Kids with SEN have no chance of a decent eduction because it isn’t tailored to their needs, some get lost in the big wheel and fal through the cracks.

That’s life

There only so many ‘good’ jobs we can’t all be brain surgeons! We need road sweepers, shop workers, fruit pockets, banker and accountants.