Boris Johnson is the twentieth Prime Minister from Eton

[Erythronium]

On the other hand we've only had two female PMs.

Isn't it time Eton started letting in girls, so they'd have the same chance as all the males to be PM? Those are good odds.

Your post is somewhat misleading MockerstheFeManist - it gives the impression that there has been no established entrance exam over the past several years. Which is obviously not the case.

Let's just abolish Eton and have done with it.

QaterMiss,

oh god I daren't. Is it full of people who think that their life story is intrinsically more interesting than the life story of anyone who went to a comp?

RedToothBrush,

I think part of the answer is to always give our full attention to the far more interesting life stories of the non-rich-born. Like John Major who turns out to have been staggeringly interesting all along (something he kept well hidden at the time, I admit).
Or Thomas Cromwell in Hilary Mantel's books. Infinitely more interesting than Anne Boleyn and her family.

etc etc, You get the picture!

All the UK PM's who went to English universites went to either Oxford or Cambridge.

I don't think that is a surprise. I'd expect PMs are more likely to be university educated than not, and they are considered some of the best universities in the world.

That's not a meritocracy. To work a meritocracy has to have mechanisms which ensure that each generation can achieve their potential, so an oligarchy cannot take root. There will never be a perfect meritocracy but many countries do it a lot better.

It's good to have mechanisms to ensure that all people can achieve their potential. But all systems need mechanisms to make them work and have potential failings associated with them, including meritocracy.

A lesser one is how to prevent the children of the wealthy and powerful from starting off ahead to the degree that it means they will almost inevitably remain on top. You can do that somewhat for material things, but it's less clear that you can compensate for other characteristics. If over time you find that children share the merits off their parents, you can soon easily have a class system, even if there is not a huge wealth divide.

But what's more concerning IMO is a tendency for people to think merit makes them deserving, or better or whatever. It's the exact mirror of people who think belonging to a particular social class makes them better, except they are even more likely to believe they really deserve their advantages.

Meritocracy also tends to imply a scale of importance, where certain types of work are better, for those with more merit, compared to others. Aside from the obvious effects it can leach very talented people out of certain types of work that are important but less valued.

If over time you find that children share the merits off their parents, you can soon easily have a class system, even if there is not a huge wealth divide

What do you mean by ‘merits’?

Because this sounds uncomfortably like scientific racism. Are the privileged genetically superior?

What do you mean by ‘merits’? Because this sounds uncomfortably like scientific racism. Are the privileged genetically superior?

Well, I don't think anyone is genetically superior. It's a category error.

But it may well be that there are some characteristics that contribute to worldly success that run in families, or some that contribute to its lack. A propensity to certain types of mental illness, a propensity to addiction - both have a genetic component, sometimes a very strong one. Being unusually good looking, or athletic, are things that can contribute to success that are strongly determined by genetics, and I am sure there are others.

Fairly small effects can be magnified a lot on a population wide level, especially combined with the other benefits that will come from being born with successful parents.

BJ is a good argument for scrapping Eton
Educating men above their intelligence and giving them the arrogance to believe they can hold high office without any evidence to back up the belief

HopeClearwater

The problem with scrapping Private Schools though is all the rich people would just flock to the catchment areas of the best schools, so there would be no good comp schools for regular kids.

Goosefoot

I very briefly went to a private school for eight months. My parents moved around a lot and couldn’t get me into a comp nearby, they couldn’t afford it but were desperate.

The difference was unbelievable. Tiny classes, spoon fed an education, the teachers going over and over work you’d done until you’d significantly improved. And this school was no where near the level Eton was!

These people who do well in these schools are not “genetically better”, they’re spoon fed an education. Boris would likely be a B/C student without it. Why would people spend £30k a year unless they knew it’d give their kids much better grades than they’d otherwise get.

"If there was a mechanism for kids from different backgrounds to access those kinds of schools more easily, it might help with the class issue. I don't think it would make a difference with the sex question though."

There is. It's the bursary system. Eton is, in fact, one of the most generous for bursaries, paying for a couple of years at a prep school prior to admittance for some scholarships. Of course, there are the elite, rich and famous at these schools, but there are also some children who are from poor families, who are in need of the kind of education these schools offer.
It has meant that these children of the upper classes have heard the other side of the story: how Margaret Thatcher wrecked the unions from the grandson of a union man, how she affected mining communities from the family of a miner. It's an opportunity for them to learn, too.

These schools will never go away. The big public schools are well endowed, they have land. There will always be schools for the very rich. Do we really want to make them more exclusive and elite?

What you will likely do is to tear down girls education. Girls' schools are not nearly so well endowed. Some of the public schools are becoming co-ed: Charterhouse (Jeremy Hunt was head boy) is the latest, but the all-girls schools are not nearly so well off.

What would even things up far more is the same kind of investment into girls' education. There is no Eton/Winchester/Harrow equivalent for girls, with the same kind of money behind it.

What is it about Eton that makes their pupils so successful? Are they better eeucated than other young people ? Or is it just a status thing?

Sorry, I didn't read the whole thread!

paying for a couple of years at a prep school prior to admittance for some scholarships.

While they do have an unusually large bursary pot they don’t actually pay for prep school any more. (I linked to their bursary policy this morning.) Instead they make it possible for pupils to apply for scholarships from state schools following the state school curriculum.

If Boring Johnson was female and refused to say how many fathers her children had she would never be elected PM, despite their expensive education.

What is it about Eton that makes their pupils so successful? Are they better eeucated than other young people ? Or is it just a status thing?

Connections. Money. Darling.

Can I just add weird post from Posie Parker on Facebook saying she thought Boring was great.

For the benefit of doubt:

Boris Johnson is

Xenophobic
Racist
Sexist
Homophobic

And that's just for starters.

What sort of person would find this man attractive?

I like David Mellor on classic Fm not in government

There is. It's the bursary system. Eton is, in fact, one of the most generous for bursaries

😂 oh WOW. What percentage of Etonians do you think are there on a scholarship? Very few of the scholarships are even full scholarships and most give a reduction of fees. You’re talking like 50% of the places are free.

We've really strayed from the subject if we're getting into the minutiae of the Eton's fee system.

They. Don't. Let. Girls. In.

Boris Johnson is a domestic abuser, now our Prime Minister.

Either of those two things are worth talking about on a feminist board.

What is it about Eton that makes their pupils so successful?

Rich parents and good contacts. Actually going to the school is almost irrelevant.

Erythronium - are you not conflating two separate things? None of our new PM’s countless failings are the fault of any contemporary English school - single sex or co-ed.

If you want to rail against him - go right ahead. But I doubt if anyone teaching anywhere now had any responsibility for his education. And I doubt that the five years of his senior school education all those years ago has been the only or even major influence on his character.

If you want to make an argument against single sex schools - again, fine. But it’s pointless to cite any now 55 year old man as part of your argument.

Let's just abolish Eton and have done with it.
Redtoothbrush - just Eton or all public schools?

@ MockerstheFeManist

There was a time, not so long ago, when Eton used to boast about it being a comprehensive. There was no entrance exam,

How long ago?